One in five Auckland suburbs had median house prices below $500,000 five years ago - but now you won't find a single suburb anywhere in the city that cheap.
That's according to the new data by research firm CoreLogic that highlighted how house prices have leapt beyond the reach of many Kiwi families.
The closest to the $500,000-mark is apartment-filled Auckland Central with a median value of $532,200. Elsewhere, prices in many other suburbs have skyrocketed past $1m over the last five years.
Five years ago one-in-five Auckland suburbs had median values below $500,000. Now you won't find any suburbs that cheap. Photo / Richard Robinson
This has meant that the number of city suburbs with median values above $1m had jumped from 13.8 per cent in February 2014 to almost half (48 per cent) as of last month, CoreLogic said.
The jump in prices were "staggering", the research firm said.
Its figures also followed this week's release of the latest Home Loan Affordability Report by financial website interest.co.nz, which declared the Auckland market unaffordable for first-home buyers.
The report found first home buyers would need to take on a $600,000 mortgage and pay just under $700 a week just to get a foothold in the market.
It calculated a typical first-home buying couple, aged 25-29 on full-time median wages would earn $1660 a week and be assumed to have saved a $76,265 deposit by putting aside 20 per cent of their net pay each week for four years.
To then buy one of Auckland's cheaper homes at a price of $680,000, the couple would need to apply for a $603,735 loan that would require weekly payments of $686.
These payments would in turn account for 41.3 per cent of the couple's weekly take-home pay.
"On that basis it would not be affordable for a young couple earning the median pay rate to buy a lower quartile-priced home in Auckland," the report found.
While typical first-home buyer wages were up 2 per cent compared to February last year, the median price for cheaper homes in the bottom "quartile" of the market had also jumped by $12,000 year-on-year.
The news is little better for a typical young family, who already own one home and want to sell it so they can upgrade to a nicer place.
The Home Loan Affordability report calculated such a family would need to take on a $512,185 mortgage if it wanted to buy a median-priced Auckland home of $852,000.
This would lead them to pay an "unaffordable" 42.7 per cent of their weekly salary on their mortgage.
It meant struggling first-home buyers would likely do well to move outside of Auckland if possible.
Wellington first-home buyers, by contrast, would only need to set aside 27.9 per cent of their wages to pay off the $416,927 mortgage needed for the typical lower-priced home.
However, home buyers may need to get in quick. The mortgage on a typical lower-priced home has jumped by $64,212 in just three months since interest.co.nz's last affordability report.
CoreLogic data also showed how house values in the capital had been racing to new heights.
It found that at the end of February 2014, 67 per cent of Wellington suburbs had a median property value below $500,000, whereas now there was only 14.9 per cent of suburbs with such cheap prices.
Wellington is still considered affordable for first-home buyers but prices are increasing fast. Photo / Mark Mitchell
However, "the real showstopper" was Dunedin, according to CoreLogic.
In February 2014, 61.7 per cent of Dunedin suburbs had a median value below $300,000, while only four had median values above $400,000 and none had prices above $500,000.
By last month, however, South Dunedin was the only suburb left with media prices below $300,000, while 40 suburbs had values above $400,000 and 14 exceeded $500,000.
The Home Loan Affordability Report calculated a typical first-home buyer couple in Dunedin would spend 22.9 per cent of their weekly income paying off their home loan.
