A shortage in land is driving up prices across Wagga as demand for vacant lots continues to outstrip supply.
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Hore and Davies director John Bittar said for the first time in about 16 years in the industry, he had just one vacant block of land to sell in a market where supply was "way off kilter" in relation to demand.
"If demand is high, at some point it has to drive up price," he said.
While he said the shortage of vacant lots was driving up land value especially in the outer suburbs, owners of established properties were likely to see little change based on the valuation of their lots.
Mr Bittar said buyers in central would look more at the home itself rather than the land value.
"It doesn't really have a huge significant difference on what that property is actually worth as an end sale," he said.
For larger central blocks where developers saw opportunities to subdivide or build units, he said the price was largely determined by how many homes could fit on the block.
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Professionals director Paul Irvine said the central Wagga market was an entirely different type of market to the expanding suburbs, and land values had little effect on selling prices for central, established homes.
"They will always have demand and growth," he said.
He said the shortage of land did drive additional buyers into established homes, but at the moment there was plenty of demand for everything from a $1.3 million Lake Albert home to a small village property which meant prices were strong for all property types.
"Our market for established homes, for new homes and for land are all equally as strong," he said.
Property valuer Chris Egan said the northern suburbs of Gobbagombalin, Estella and Boorooma continuing to lead the way in value increases.
Centrally, Mr Egan said the appetite for smaller blocks as the city moves to denser living was keeping values up.
"Not everyone wants a bigger block of land nowadays, they're happier to live in smaller, swankier, trendier townhouses and villas," he said.
The NSW Valuer General this week released a new valuation report for the Wagga suburbs which showed just a 0.3 per cent increase in the city's residential value from July 2019 to July 2020.
However, Mr Egan says those figures do not represent what has been occurring in the market for much of the past year.
"That might be true for that period but recently, definitely not," he said.
"We have seen increases in residential land prices more recently, and there are plenty of sales to support that."