House in Mataura sold for $7k - QV

The house has a 1012sq m section. Photo / Otago Daily Times

From a $7000 doer-upper in Mataura to a $15 million Auckland mansion - welcome to the highs and lows of the New Zealand property market.

Figures released to the Otago Daily Times reveal the country's cheapest and most expensive property sales between September 1, 2009, and September 30, 2010.

Quotable Values figures show while New Zealand's cheapest and most expensive homes were both built between 1910 and 1919, that is where the similarities end.

A home in the upmarket Auckland suburb of Remuera fetched $15 million in May, which would enable the seller to buy the country's cheapest home more than 2000 times over.

Apart from producing two recent All Black halfbacks in Justin Marshall and Jimmy Cowan, the Eastern Southland town of Mataura has a more dubious claim to fame, home to the cheapest residential property in the country.

It is the third year in a row the town has claimed the unofficial title, with a Kana St home, complete with 1012sq m section, selling for $7000 last December.

The modest home attracts an annual rates bill of $1398, compared with $15,318 for the Remuera property.

Gore Mayor Tracy Hicks, who grew up in Mataura, said the town had gone through some difficult times but there were "huge developments on the horizon" - namely, the area's vast lignite resources.

"It is a town with a lot of opportunities, and there are some real good homes there."

Of 16 regions, Otago had the fourth-most expensive residential property, behind Auckland ($15 million), Bay of Plenty ($15 million) and Wellington ($4.8 million).

Otago's priciest property was a Peninsula Rd, Kawarau Falls, address, which sold in May to an Australian couple for $4.4 million (annual rates: $4700).

At the opposite end of the market, a Tapanui dwelling built between 1910 and 1919 sold in July for $40,000 (annual rates: $1769.25), well below Otago's average house price of $324,000.

The top price paid for a rural property was $5 million for a Patearoa stock-finishing property in September 2009, with the top price in the country going to a Taupo dairying block, which sold in March for $14.4 million.

• The figures above relate only to freehold, open-market sales.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES