Wildly fluctuating house prices — and the surprise winners. How did your suburb fare?
Takapuna has the fastest growing median house price in Auckland, according to the latest data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ).
For the six months ending March 2019, 67 houses were sold in Takapuna at a median house price of $1.3 million.
That's up 30 per cent up on the same time last year when 83 houses were sold at an average price of $1m.
The rise of Takapuna house prices bucked the trend and there were big drops for traditionally popular suburbs such as Parnell (down 20.8 per cent) and Kohimarama (down 21 per cent).
Mount Albert experienced the largest drop, with the median house price falling 31.2 per cent to below $1m.
In the six months ending March 2019, 112 houses were sold in Mount Albert at a median house price of $805,250, while 107 houses were sold at an average of $1.17m the same time last year.
The median house price in Royal Oak also fell below the $1m mark from $1.16m to $865,000 – down 25.4 per cent.
Popular central locations such as Mount Eden (-20.1 per cent), Herne Bay (-17.2 per cent) and Freemans Bay (-17 per cent) also suffered significant drops.
"Seeing some of the central suburbs falling towards the bottom of the list doesn't necessarily come as a surprise. Suburbs such as Mount Eden, Westmere and Herne Bay have been slowly declining in price for a while now," said REINZ chief executive Bindi Norwell said.
OneRoof.co.nz editor Owen Vaughan says: "The REINZ data illustrates what's selling and also what's not selling. Houses in the higher price bands have not been selling in the numbers they used to, and that hole has dragged down the median price in suburbs such as Kohimarama and Parnell. Suburbs where there is more affordable stock have done better.
"What's interesting about Takapuna is that it has a good mix of large expensive houses and more affordable units and apartments."
It was important to remember that shifts in median price did not necessarily mean individual houses were falling by 20 per cent or more, said OneRoof.co.nz commentator Ashley Church.
"The median price is the sales price where half the sales are above it and half the sales are below it. Basically, it's the middle number," he says.
Looked at on a suburb by suburb basis - with a relatively small pool of sales - the changes can show quite wide fluctuations.
In fact the overall trend in Auckland houses prices remained flat, Norwell said.
"It's been sitting around the $850,000 mark for about three years so its actually in a stable place."
Median house prices in Onehunga were the second-fastest growing with a median house price of $925,000 on 127 sold houses. This was up 19.4 per cent on the same time last year ($775,000).
Morningside came in at third with a median house price increase of 18.9 per cent, with prices jumping from $841,300 to just over $1m.
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On Auckland's North Shore, median house prices in Long Bay fell 24.8 per cent from $1.58m to $1.18m, while in Albany they fell 20.5 per cent from $837,000 to $665,500.
Glen Innes was one of the surprise suburbs on the fastest-growing list with a median price increase of 12.9 per cent, jumping from $890,000 to $1.005m.
"As for Glen Innes, the Tamaki Regeneration programme is likely to have played a part in the significant price growth there as the community continues to see a number of new houses being built and the promise of a more attractive and sustainable place to live for existing and new residents of the area," said Norwell.
