2021 Property and Construction Industry Honours: Innovative Project of the Year

2021 Property and Construction Industry Honours

Innovative Project of the Year

Honoured project: movein.co.nz

Reason for recognition: Using technological innovation to directly address the difficulties of buying and selling new and off-plan homes

Since 2021, rising New Zealand house prices have seen demand for existing homes outstrip supply in many areas. According to data released by MBIE, New Zealand had a nationwide shortage of 130,000 homes in 2019, with Auckland facing the most severe housing crisis. To ease the pressure that housing shortages and rising prices place on buyers, the Government introduced a series of incentives for new homes, attracting growing attention to newly built and off-plan properties.

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According to Stats NZ data, over the past two years the construction boom across New Zealand, particularly in Auckland, has reached unprecedented levels, with new home construction in full swing and 17,000 new homes completed across the city. This influx of new homes has brought fresh vitality to a property market facing persistent shortages, but it has also created a problem: buying from plans without being able to see the finished property is the biggest difficulty in selling these homes.

Unlike sales of existing homes, sales of new homes, particularly off-plan properties, leave sellers and real estate agents unable to provide buyers with comprehensive property information or a real-world view of exactly what they will receive. This creates considerable obstacles in the sales process. Meanwhile, many buyers eager to enter the market struggle to make decisions because they lack sufficient information, missing potential investment opportunities.

Against this backdrop, movein.co.nz emerged as an online property listing platform focused on new home presales. By carefully considering the core needs of both buyers and sellers and using technological innovation to address their specific difficulties, it offers a new way to present new and off-plan homes for sale in comprehensive detail.

Under traditional sales models, real estate agents can often give prospective buyers only a general overview based on resource consent (RC) or building consent (BC) documentation, particularly during the early stages of a project when consents are being assessed. They cannot visually demonstrate the details of a home or the wider property. Movein.co.nz fills this gap in new and off-plan home sales. The Movein team’s innovative 3D rendering service can begin production while a home is still undergoing consent approval. Combined with a 720-degree panoramic tour (720° virtual tour), it captures every important design detail and gives prospective buyers an immersive experience, helping agents improve their success rate in selling new and off-plan homes.

For buyers, having to make a purchase decision based solely on basic floor plans and technical architectural drawings supplied by a developer makes choosing a home much harder and increases purchasing risks. The 3D renderings provided by Movein’s locally based design team comply with New Zealand building standards. Each listing includes 5 interior renderings, 1 floor plan in 3D and 2 exterior neighbourhood renderings, together with a 720-degree panoramic tour. These help prospective buyers quickly gain a clear understanding of important details such as the internal layout, overall style and included appliances. In addition, the detail feature on movein.co.nz allows buyers to look up the corresponding RC and BC documentation, giving them a clear understanding of information such as the building’s structural details.

By directly addressing users’ difficulties, movein.co.nz attracted strong interest from potential users as soon as it launched. The platform currently lists more than 700 new homes, with an average of around 1000 new customer registrations a day, and the numbers continue to rise. Through partnerships with high-traffic sites such as Google Search, Facebook and Instagram, Movein.co.nz is expected to attract greater attention from buyers in New Zealand and overseas in the near future. Its distinctive services are also expected to appeal to more property developers and real estate agents.