Homes in top suburb near $3m mark

Herne Bay home owners in Auckland are now hitting Lotto first division with every house sold as the suburb’s typical sale price edges close to $3 million.

The prestigious central neighbourhood’s homes now sell for a median $2.96m sale price – just $44,000 away from being the country’s first suburb to break the $3m mark.

Its typical sale price jumped $660,000 in the past year, with about half the increase coming in the past month and a half as Auckland’s housing market ran super hot, analysis by property website Oneroof and data partner Valocity showed. By comparison, a typical Auckland worker would need to spend almost 10 years toiling in a full-time job to earn the same amount.

Or put another way, Herne Bay values effectively jumped $1808 every day in the past year.

That was equivalent to Herne Bay homes bringing in almost double a typical Kiwi’s weekly $1189 salary every day for a year.

Aucklander Helen Hill and her husband said the massive price jumps had made house hunting “very difficult”.

The couple sold their first home just after March’s Covid-19 lockdown and spent the past five months hunting for a new home before finally managing to buy this month after compromising on their choice of location.

“Places like Herne Bay are out of this world,” Hill said of her hunt in more modest suburbs.

“We missed out at several auctions and we had to start looking outside central suburbs to get something within our price range.”

Their tough house hunt came as Auckland’s market shocked pundits by going on a run of record price rises ever since New Zealand’s Covid-19 lockdown in March.

The city’s median sales price jumped

full-time above $1m for the first time in October with record selling prices being driven by a “fear of missing out” among buyers and all-time-low interest rates that made home loans cheaper.

Valocity director of valuations James Wilson said Herne Bay had long led the way, being the first New Zealand suburb to reach a $1m median sales price back in 2004, before crossing the $2m mark in 2015.

Now just five years later it was on the cusp of breaking through the $3m mark as luxury home owners joined the house buying frenzy.

“That surge has been the result of buyer demand at the top end of the market outstripping supply,” he said.

Real Estate Institute chief executive Bindi Norwell said Herne Bay’s status as New Zealand’s most exclusive suburb — home to real estate tycoons, Hollywood stars and celebrities — was obvious.