Marketed by Bayleys, it features 141 units ranging from one- to three-bedders, private-entry and dual-key apartments and penthouses.
Prices range from $639,000 to $1.5million.
Safari Group owner Rob Neil says with a retail value of about $130m it’ll be his biggest local development.
He originally planned a hotel/apartment complex under Wyndham’s TRYP franchise, but says Mountain Oak will now be more residential but with owners still able to let their units out for visitor accommodation.
“We just think there’s enough hotels out in Remarkables Park and this complements what we’ve done there [Ramada, Wyndham Garden and La Quinta] and what others have done.
“When someone comes to stay in a hotel, they look at that differently to someone that wants to stay in an Airbnb-type scenario.”
Neil says they’ll fully launch Mountain Oak in February, especially in Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne, after a predicted further drop in the official cash rate.
However, he says 35 to 40 units are already under contract in Auckland, after a soft launch there, with about half a dozen Queenstown parties, including first-home buyers, also showing interest, he says.
“There’s probably more of a market in Queenstown right now than I’ve seen in the past, because we’ve never really sold a huge amount in Queenstown itself over the years.”
Neil says if he was an investor right now, he’d be getting something now because by late next year he suspects the market will have moved on and prices will have risen.
Meanwhile, he expects construction to start late April/early May and take about 20 months.
