Inner-city suburbs in Christchurch made the top 10, as did Whanganui and Masterton.
Absent from the list are the posher, expensive suburbs which often top “hot” area lists, like Remuera, Ponsonby or Oriental Bay.
Valocity senior research analyst Wayne Shum said the list was for most Kiwis, not the top 10% of earners. He said that the analysis’s key message was that people should reassess the more affordable suburbs on the list because while they might not be top of mind, they do have the most potential.
The list was inspired by similar housing market analysis carried out by Australia’s real estate portals. OneRoof wanted to identify the suburbs that had the greatest potential to reward buyers in years to come.
Shum said the team assigned scores based on various criteria, including a heavy emphasis on affordability, resilience over the recent downturn and factors like the number of building and renovation consents issued in recent years, mortgage data, amenities, employment proximity and property price and population growth.
The analysis comes as new house price figures from OneRoof show the housing market is still under pressure.
The nationwide average property dropped 0.7% to $957,000 in the three months to the end of October. The decline was smaller than the three-month drop of 1.1% recorded at the end of September, suggesting the market has finally found the floor.
Cuts to the Official Cash Rate (OCR) and falling mortgage rates are already having an impact on buyer activity. Since the first OCR cut in August, inquiries on OneRoof have risen almost 20% while agents have noted more people at open homes and increased bidding at auctions.
Six regions recorded quarterly value growth, up from five at the end of September.
West Coast and Southland — two of the country’s cheapest regions for property — were up more than 1%, but the 0.1% lift in Canterbury to $782,000 is more significant for the overall market. The region is New Zealand’s second-largest for sales and has held up well across all price points.
House prices in Auckland dropped 0.8% ($10,000) in the three months to the end of October to $1.279 million, down from the quarterly drop of 1.7% at the end of September and 2.6% at the end of August.
Still dropping but at a slower rate are property values in Wellington (-1.9% to $863,000) and Northland (-2.2% to $815,000). Both regions have been hit hard by the winter slump, with low sales and falling values particularly acute in Kaipara, in Northland, and Carterton and Wellington City, in the Wellington region.
At a major metro level, only Queenstown-Lakes was up, although the pace of value growth in the country’s most expensive district for real estate has slowed, from almost 3% at the end of August to 0.9% at the end of October.
Values in Christchurch and Hamilton were down by just a fraction (-0.3% and -0.4%) over the last three months, but values in Dunedin dropped 1% — a surprise after the city’s brief period of stability. Tauranga was also down, by 1.3%, while Wellington City’s average property value is 2.8% ($28,000) lower than it was at the end of July and 5.7% ($58,000) lower than at the end of April.
The average property value grew in a third of the suburbs covered by the index, up from less than 25% of suburbs at the end of September.
West Coast suburbs recorded the strongest growth, with Runanga, in Grey, up 8.3% ($23,000) to $301,000, although values in two of the country’s richest areas — Lake Hayes and Arrowtown, in Queenstown-Lakes — were also up sharply, 7.6% and 3.5%, or $198,000 and $98,000.
The biggest quarterly losses were in the Far North, with 12 suburbs in the Northland district recording value drops of more than 5%. Karikari Peninsula was hardest hit, dropping 12.4% ($97,000) to $686,000, closely followed by Paihia (-10.1%), and Russell and Kaikohe (both down 8.5%).
The biggest value drops were in the Ashburton suburbs of Netherby and Allenton (down 11.5% and 7.9% respectively), but also feeling the squeeze were two high-profile suburbs on Auckland’s lifestyle fringe. Whitford’s average property value dropped 7.6% ($276,000) to $3.41m while Coatesville’s tumbled 7.4% ($271,000) to $3.38m.
