The post-Covid property boom, fuelled by record-low interest rates, has significantly altered house prices - at the top and bottom of the market.
There are now 20 Kiwi suburbs that have a median property value of $2 million or more - up from just four year ago - while he number of $1m-plus suburbs has exploded from 117 to 282 - a staggering 141% increase over the space of just 12 months.
READ MORE: Find out if your suburb is rising or falling
And New Zealand now has two $3m suburbs - Herne Bay and Whitford.
Start your property search
The latest OneRoof figures show most of the jumps across the $1m threshold are in Auckland, but the rapid escalation in prices that took place after the Covid lockdown lifted in May 2020 has transformed the housing market in other key cities.
A year ago there were just 22 suburbs outside of Auckland that had median values of $1m-plus. Now that number is 116, with Wellington now home to just seven suburbs where typical house prices are less than $1m (a drop of 74%) and almost half of Tauranga sporting typical prices of $965,000 or more.
In Auckland, several suburbs previously seen as affordable, such as Mount Wellington, Glen Innes and Mangere Bridge, have a median property value of $1m or more. And house prices in some of the city's poorest enclaves are within touching distance of $1m.
In the last five years sub-$1 million sales have contracted 26%, while the number of homes selling in the $1m-$3m price bracket have jumped almost 37%.
Oriental Bay, in Wellington, has a median property value of just over $2.6m. Photo / Getty Images
Seven suburbs saw price growth $1m or more in the last five years. Herne Bay, New Zealand’s expensive location for real estate, saw growth of $1.37m – 57% of which was in the last year alone.
The typical deposit requirements for first home buyers nationally grew by $30,000 to $155,800 in the last 12 months. In Auckland, buyers would need to save $222,800 - $43,000 more than a year ago.
The average extra deposit required for Auckland’s “affordable” suburbs – those that had median values of less than $1m a year ago – is $58,000.
In South Auckland, prices of more than $1m would have been inconceivable a year ago, but demand for developable land has seen modest homes with favourable zoning fetch big sums.
Ray White Manukau agent Jay Singh says homeowners in Otara and Manurewa have been capitalising on the price gains and moving further south to city fringe areas like Clevedon, where property prices have jumped more 50% in the last year.
“There’s so much happening in residential areas, people just want to capitalise on what they had and go rural,” he said.
Auckland’s northern fringes are also on the rise. Price growth in Dairy Flat property values rise $665,000 in the last 12 months to $2.57m.
Harcourts Takapuna agent Deb Wallace, who has been selling in the area for more than 20 years, says she hasn’t sold a property in Dairy Flat for under $2m since before Covid.
“Entry level in the area is low to mid $2m and you wouldn’t be able to buy anything below $2million unless it’s plaster home or bare land.”
With build costs rising, buyers were increasingly choosing existing homes over bare sections.
Wallace points to the $5m sale of a five-bedroom home with an office, outdoor pool, a tennis court on a 1.3ha section in the suburb to prove the point.
“People always think Dairy Flat is a lesser sister of Coatesville but it is not necessary that,” she said.
Bayleys agent Ailsa McArthur, who sells in Coatesville, agrees that price tags of under $2m are rare.
This month a five-bedroom home on a 1ha site in the suburb sold for $3.3m after a pre-auction offer. The buyers, a young family, had been incredibly motivated to find something.
McArthur says she recently sold a four-bedroom do-up in the suburb for $1.7m. “Anything under $2million is pretty hard to find here,” she says.
In Whitford, in Auckland’s south east fringe, typical property prices jumped close to $1m in the last 12 months, with suburb’s median property value up from $2.182m last May to $3.03m now.
Whitford Barfoot and Thompson branch manager Lance Pemberton says demand outstripping supply is fuelling the price lifts.
“We don’t have enough stock,” he says.
He points to nine lifestyle blocks that had struggled to find buyers pre-Covid. The blocks were re-listed in January, and five have now sold.
“It’s a good example of something we’ve struggled to sell a while ago and this time round people look at it and think ‘I could live there’,” he said.
NZ's BIGGEST-EARNING SUBURBS
Herne Bay, Auckland:
Whitford, Auckland:
Oriental Bay, Wellington:
Ponsonby, Auckland:
St Marys Bay, Auckland:
Waiheke Island, Auckland:
Clevedon, Auckland:
Tauriko, Tauranga:
