84 | Catering for first-home buyers New Dreamland Development supplies quality housing for people stepping onto the property ladder. PROPERTY New Dreamland Development Sue Russell Steven Chen is proudly leading a second-generation property development business in Auckland. New Dreamland Development began in 2002 and prior to the family moving here from China, they had run a successful residential building business there. “My parents moved to here in 2001 and just a year later we got underway.” Steven is very familiar and understands the building cycle phases that naturally occur, the boom and bust periods and he says key to successfully negotiating these often extreme events, is ensuring the business is future-proofed with a solid bank of land set aside for development when the times are good. “We’ve had a huge effect through COVID, and what it has brought. I think the amount of houses we did dropped by nearly 50%. Compare that to the 2018/2019 year when we built 120 houses.” New Dreamland Development is its own main contracting company, developing terraced housing, multi-unit residential blocks for themselves to sell. Working with Steven is a small tight-knit team of experienced property professionals, including four project managers and site managers. Construction of their developments is usually undertaken by contracted specialist, from general builders, to electricians and plumbers. “We find this structure works very well for us. It means we can work very efficiently and responsively to the market situation.” Meeting the need to provide first-home buyers with lots of affordable options is what drives Steven. The company has a lot of land and has worked in closely with McConnel Property for a decade now. A glance at the company’s website displays a large number of current and completed builds and Steven says his role is very much tuned to the future as a strategist to enable New Dreamland Development to seize opportunities as these present. “When you are dealing with large-scale residential development your head is in the “Catering for the first-home buyer is what we do a lot of but we also supply housing for the next level, priced in the early $1million.” future a lot. We acquire our land through our relationship with McConnel Property.” And having patience too is important, particularly with large-scale housing developments such as that in Grange Road, on the site of the old Grange Road Golf Course. “We bought the project back in 2019 and then we started work on it in 2020 and then COVID came along. At the moment we’re building 64 terraces and four more blocks. When completed the project will have 12 super-blocks in total.” Homes in this development are approximately 111m2. The super-blocks will include 3 bedroom houses each with 2.5 bathrooms. “Catering for the first-home buyer is what we do a lot of but we also supply housing for the next level, priced in the early $1million.” Steven uses Shanahan Architects and has done so for the past 15 years. He says they understand what goes into making great designs in more compact homes, giving owners a sense of space. Ensuring the company has sufficient land set aside is one of Steven’s key roles. He says reading the market and positioning the business to take advantage when demand increases. “I think there is a misunderstanding by some about companies such as ours that land-bank and set it aside. We have to have land so when the conditions are right we can build houses.” Steven is very proud of the contribution New Dreamland Development has made to supplying quality housing and opportunities for so many people to step on to the property ladder. He says Addison is a remarkable development of McConnell in Takanini and is recognized as an example of best practice of medium density urban design by the Ministry for the Environment. Addison Park size is over 90ha, with over 1300 houses. Next year at Addison Park, Takanini the company plans to build 107 houses, it is the last stage of Addison Park and will have homes of various type from 150m2 to 250m2 and 3 bedrooms to 5 bedrooms. “We are fortunate that with good planning and being prepared there are plenty of opportunities to acquire land to build really worthwhile housing developments on. “That’s our way of contributing to the future prosperity of our city and to enabling more and more people to enjoy owning their own home.” Proud to support New Dreamland Development Ltd
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=