Some state houses in Auckland are valued around 3 million dollars.
The country's most valuable state house is a $3 million weatherboard bungalow in the upmarket Auckland suburb of Remuera.
The valuation of the Hapua St house - home to the same tenant for 37 years - is enough to buy almost six homes in Hamilton at the city's average value ($543,446), or almost three in Auckland ($1.05m).
It's 61 times more than the $49,588 a primary school teacher would earn in their first year of work and almost 40 times more than the $75,949 a teacher could earn after seven years' service.
The vacant property at the back of this on Garus Ave, Mangere East is Housing New Zealand's most valuable property overall. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The information, provided by CoreLogic head of research Nick Goodall, comes as Auckland's estimated 44,000 housing shortage puts pressure on the market and consequently the social housing sector.
The latest Ministry of Social Development figures showed as of September 2017, 5844 people were on the social housing register.
And as of June 2017, 1411 state homes were sitting empty and there were 667 vacant land titles nationwide.
Almost half the empty homes, and more than a third of vacant land titles were in Auckland.
The Hapua St house was the most expensive standalone home but the most valuable property was a 8082sq m tranche of vacant land, valued at $3.5m on Garus Ave in Mangere.
The site would likely remain empty for some time as Housing New Zealand said it was too early to unveil what, if any plans it has for the site.
The land could fit 44 average-sized 182 sq m houses side by side.
This house in Disraeli St, Epsom, Auckland is the fifth most expensive state house. Photo / Jason Oxenham.
One of its closest neighbours, another HNZ house on a patch of land a fraction of the size at 410 sq m had an rateable valuation (RV) of $550,000.
The 81-year-old man living in the Hapua St home had his doubts it was worth $3.025m when the Herald visited him.
"Bulls**t," he said.
The artist had moved into the home 37 years ago with his wife, who was unwell. She died not long after they moved in.
The man has watched as houses around him were built and the tiny road become increasingly clogged with parked cars.
He said if he had a choice he wouldn't live there - the area had become too busy for his liking.
But he's made it home, carpeting the floors, fixing the walls, tending to the garden and filling the humble lounge with his array of paintings and carvings.
The worn 1970s bungalow, with its green and yellow lichen-covered roof, small square front yard, concrete drive and bushy backyard certainly looks more like an affordable antique in need of DIY than the multi-million dollar splurge its latest RV suggests.
Despite its modest facade, the $3.025m tag puts it well above what Quotable Value (QV) estimated was the median home value of $2.09m in Remuera.
Across 47,954 HNZ properties CoreLogic was able to analyse, the total value was $24.8b - $16.8b, in Auckland.
Just over 3500 had a capital valuation of at least $1m - the top five were all valued at more than $2.5m.
HNZ would not reveal the actual value of all its property assets, but said it owned or managed 63,209.
A HNZ spokesman said its top five most expensive differed slightly from CoreLogic's analysis as it had it undertook its own valuations of its housing stock.
Citing privacy reasons, he did not divulge addresses, but said the top of its list was in Hapua St with a number of others in the strip joining it in the top 10.
