Queenstown prices skyrocket
Tracy Withers and Matthew Brockett
Move over Sydney and Auckland, there’s a hotter property market in the southern hemisphere and it’s only 2414kms from Antarctica. In Queenstown, New Zealand’s adventure tourism mecca and playground for the rich and famous, house prices rocketed 31 per cent in the year through September to an average price of $959,000 — that’s twice the 15 per cent rate of increase in Auckland. In Sydney, prices climbed a mere 10 per cent. Queenstown has become one of the nation’s most unaffordable places as more buyers depart the overheated Auckland market, where prices have almost doubled in the past nine years. The central bank’s steps in 2015 to curb lending to investors in the northern city spurred many to look elsewhere while other home-owners have taken advantage of surging values by selling, or refinancing amid record-low borrowing costs, giving them the cash to look south. Aucklanders “can get equity out of their homes more easily than they could five years ago”, said Queenstown realtor Gail Hudson. “They’ve seen it as an opportune time to take some money out and buy here.” The average house price in Auckland rose to more than $1 million in August, according to Quotable Value New Zealand. Prices have also soared more than 20 per cent in the past year in Hamilton, Tauranga and Wellington. The central bank last year responded to soaring Auckland prices by requiring investors to have a bigger down-payment for a mortgage. It’s now applied such limits to investors nationwide, but it remains to be seen whether the rules will impact on Queenstown, which is second to Auckland as the most unaffordable centre in the country, according to Massey University’s Home Affordability Report. —