Stand down, Herne Bay: Auckland's new top-priced suburb

Step aside Herne Bay, says a valuer and real estate agent who has named a perhaps surprising area as Auckland's top-priced suburb.

Jason Smale of Premium Real Estate says he has analysed Auckland sales and found that the Coatesville area on Auckland's northern outskirts is by far the city's most expensive area.

The green, rolling pastoral area dotted with mansions has an average sale price of $3,319,083, calculated Smale, who says he has sold properties worth $320m.

"There are 611 residential properties officially in Coatesville; genuine, true, Coatesville, not Lucas Heights, Riverhead, Albany, Paremoremo or Dairy Flat," Smale said.

"In 2016, there were 47 bona fide residential property sales in Coatesville. I excluded from the statistics any sale that was bare land or was not a true market bona fide sale.

"The total value of these sales equalled $155,996,888 resulting in the average sale price of $3,319,083," he calculated.

Peter Mangin, realestate.co.nz's chief operating officer, backed the analysis saying his data also showed Coatesville was more expensive than Herne Bay. According to his data, Coatesville had an average asking price of $3.5m between November and April, compared to Herne Bay's $3.3 million.

"Smale isn't wrong on the pricing," Mangin said.

But far more properties sell in the more densely populated Herne Bay than Coatesville.

"Demand has consistently been an average of 21.99 per cent higher in Herne Bay since November last year," Mangin said, and 14 properties were listed in April in Herne Bay compared with 10 in Coatesville.

Coatesville Barfoot & Thompson branch manager Paul Adams says: "The area offers a rural, community-based lifestyle just on the outskirts of Albany and not far from the city. There are many high-value properties available, with most sales being lifestyle blocks ranging from one to 100 acres."

Last month, a new house estimated to cost about $10m was featured in the Herald. Read: $10m hotel-like mansion rising in rural Auckland.

The former Kim Dotcom mansion in Coatesville sold for $32.5m late last year. Records showed that was bought by Mahoenui Valley Trustee.