New data suggests families may be less willing to pay a big premium for a home in Auckland's Double Grammar Zone. Photo / Jason Oxenham
New data suggests families may be less willing to pay a big premium for a home in Auckland's Double Grammar Zone. Photo / Jason Oxenham
New data suggests families may be less willing to pay a big premium for a home in Auckland’s famous Double Grammar Zone.
DGZ homes have typically sold for prices 40% higher than those nearby.
This year, however, they’ve been selling at prices just 24% higher than those nearby.
Auckland families may now be less willing to pay big premiums to live in the city’s famous Double Grammar Zone than they had been a decade ago, new data suggests.
The inner Auckland zone has long had an almost magical appeal for some, with tales often told aboutDGZ homes selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than similar properties just outside the zone.
The appeal of the zone is access to Auckland Grammar School and Epsom Girls' Grammar school. Photo / Michael Craig
The appeal is because children living in the zone can get free educations at two of the nation’s most prestigious public schools: Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls’ Grammar.
Between 2014 and 2019 that helped DGZ homes typically sell for prices at least 40% higher than those located 500m or less outside the zone, new data by analysts Valocity showed.
However, over the last five years, that premium has typically dropped to less than 40%, and was just 24% this year.
Valocity senior research analyst Wayne Shum said families may be preferring to instead buy a bigger and cheaper home outside the Double Grammar Zone and use their savings to help pay for private education.
“When you start doing sums like that - and if a lot of people are having just one child - maybe private school is more economical,” he said.
However, Shum also said that DGZ homes may still have their appeal with big families.
That’s because the cost of paying seven years of private intermediate and secondary school fees for multiple children can quickly add up.
Epsom Girls' Grammar School is one of the most prestigious girls schools in Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton
It’s like an economy of scale, Shum said.
“So maybe you’ve got to have a big family to make it worth it to buy in the (DGZ),” he said.
The zone covers large swathes of four of the city’s most valuable suburbs – Remuera, Epsom, Parnell and Mount Eden – as well the cheaper, apartment-heavy suburbs of Grafton and Newmarket.
Another factor that could also be driving DGZ house prices down is the rush of new apartments and townhouses being built in Auckland.
Bayleys Remuera agent Gary Wallace said the city had been getting carved up into ever smaller blocks in recent years.
“You’ve gone from the big traditional homes ... down to sort of more cost-effective housing where the land’s been subdivided or intensified.”
That’s especially been the case in suburbs within the DGZ, such as Remuera and Mt Eden.
“So my gut feeling is that has a lot to do it,” Wallace said about why DGZ homes might be selling for less of a premium.
Fellow Bayleys Remuera agent David Rainbow said he believed new, smaller homes being built within the zone had been proving popular.
That included families moving into rentals in the zone, as well as those looking to buy and live in the DGZ only while their children were high school-aged.
“They are buying those types of properties just purely for that reason,” he said.
“And then once the children leave, they buy a better property [elsewhere].”
Ray White Remuera agent Steve Koerber said private schools had become more popular since the Covid pandemic, but the tougher economic conditions could be causing families to reassess their finances.
The appeal of free, high quality education at the grammar schools could become more important again, he said.
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