In the last 12 months, Wellington house prices have surged on the back of low interest rates and a limited supply of listings, but new research from OneRoof shows just how hot the capital’s housing market has become.
An analysis of Wellington’s settled sales this year found that the capital has a worrying number of suburbs where no property changed for less than $1m.
READ MORE: The Auckland suburbs where every house sells for $1m-plus
According to OneRoof’s research, there are six suburbs where properties fetched a minimum of $1m this year, up two on the previous six month period, and just 17 suburbs where the lowest entry point was $500,000 or less, down five on the previous six-month period.
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While the numbers may seem small, they suggest that rising house prices are in effect creating no-go areas for first home buyers in the capital.
The $1m-plus sale suburbs include Kaiwharawhara, Karaka Bays, Ohariu, Seatoun, Moa Point and Southgate.
Kaiwharawhara, at the bottom of the Khandallah Gorge in Wellington, was the capital’s most expensive entry point, with the suburb’s lowest settled sale price this year a very high $1.855m for a four-bedroom home.
The architecturally designed house, which looks over the harbour and sits in a gated community at Sovereign Point, fetched more than $400,000 above its 2018 rating valuation. Wellington’s most expensive entry point into the market this year was a four-bedroom home in Kaiwharwhara, which sold for $1.855m.
Grant Henderson, from Bayleys Wellington, said properties in the suburb were tightly held.
OneRoof figures show Kaiwharawhara’s median property value had jumped almost half a million dollars in the last 12 months, with Henderson saying buyers shouldn’t be surprised to pay over the $2m mark for homes there. He added that properties in neighbouring Oriental Bay can fetch over $4m, and at the time of talking Bayleys had an apartment in the suburb that was under offer for $1.6m. “There have been some big sales around there, very big sales,” he said.
The OneRoof data shows the lowest entry point into Wellington this year was a $190,000 one- bedroom unit in the Quest apartment building on Johnston Street in the city centre, but Henderson says $650,000 is more likely to be the minimum required to break into Wellington before having to head out to places like Otaki.
In Christchurch there were only three suburbs where every house sold this year changed hands for $1m or more - Allandale, Ataahua and Kennedys Bush - while the number of suburbs with entry points of $500,000 or less dropping from 85 at the end of last year to 79 this year, reflecting a buoyant market.
The most expensive entry point was $1.26m paid for a four-bedroom home with a pool on Akaroa Road in Ataahua, which is well outside the city, and the lowest entry point was the $100,000 paid for a two-bedroom unit Cumberland Street in Richmond, closer to the centre of Christchurch.
James Wilson, head of valuations at OneRoof’s data partner, Valocity, said the data for Christchurch reflected how the flat post-earthquakes market was now seeing a surge post-rebuild, with investors and first home buyers flocking to new stock built on the outskirts of the city.
