City’s hottest property spots

Cheapest town or suburb proves pick of the bunch as its home values jumped 3.4pc

Auckland’s best performing markets in the last three months included a raft of million dollar suburbs, yet it was humble Wellsford in the north that topped them all.

Seven of the 10 Auckland suburbs with the highest jump in house values between April 1 and July 31 had median prices above $1 million, new One Roof Property Report data showed.

Yet it was the Auckland region’s cheapest town or suburb, Wellsford, with a median price of $536,600, that proved the pick of the bunch as its home values jumped 3.4 per cent.

Chatswood in the North Shore was the next best performer with a 2.8 per cent jump in values to a median price of $1,262,350. It was followed by fellow northern suburb Windsor Park where values climbed 2.3 per cent to $1,198,800.

Elsewhere, the outlook was not so rosy for northern suburbs as they accounted for five of Auckland’s 10 worst-performing markets.

This included Forrest Hill, which took the city’s biggest dive, with a 5 per cent drop in values to a median price of $1,177,950 and neighbouring Sunnynook where values fell 3.9 per cent.

Northern retirement hotspots, Omaha, Manly and Red Beach, also made it into Auckland’s biggest losers list.

Auckland’s richest residents were the other notable losers as seven of the city’s 10 most expensive suburbs fell in value during the quarter.

With Auckland’s suburbs producing a mixed bag of results, Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson said buyers could not simply count on house prices rising across the board as they had in the past decade.

Buyers instead had to pick their areas carefully. “It’s back to real estate of old. It’s all the suburbs that have been moving [in price],” he told One Roof.

His comments come as prices fell in more than half of the Auckland region’s 167 suburbs during the last quarter.

Just 21 suburbs posted price gains of 1 per cent or more, while another 38 suburbs either gained marginally or held their value.

Despite the long slowdown in Auckland prices that has now stretched almost two years, Thompson predicted the market would hold steady into 2019 because houses were still being sold at steady rates.

“In the first six months of this year — for Barfoot & Thompson — we’ve seen each week the number of sales made just slightly up on the corresponding week of last year and the sale price has gone up less than half a per cent over 12 months,” he said.

Nick Goodall, the head of research for analysts CoreLogic NZ, predicted a gradual drop in prices but said it wasn’t “time to panic”.

New Zealand was now in the middle of one of its strongest residential building phases on record based on the number of consents granted, yet it was unclear how many of these would result in new homes on the ground, he said.

This was because the building industry was already operating at capacity and because some major construction firms had gone into liquidation, calling into doubt how quickly new projects could be completed.

On a positive note for buyer activity, interest rates remained low and the outlook was for them to “stay low for longer”.

Thompson said his biggest concern was whether home buyers were starting to take on mortgages too big for their incomes.

However, ASB chief economist Nick Tuffley said Reserve Bank data had not as yet shown evidence of Kiwis getting into trouble paying their mortgages.

Away from Auckland, cities and towns close to Wellington continue to be among the country’s best performing markets.

Bulls experienced the biggest jump in value in the country with median prices up 8.5 per cent.

Shannon and Dannevirke were the nation’s next best performers with 6.9 per cent and 6.6 per cent hikes.

Whangarei District and Napier City were standouts, growing 3.2 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively. new high for the fourth consecutive year.

Provisional statistics show 606 Kiwis took their own life in the 2016-17 year, with the numbers of men and Maori well above national averages.

Victoria Rendall, an Aucklander who volunteers for Lifeline, said she became a helpline volunteer after her father committed suicide in December 2016. His father also took his own life at the same age, 59.

“It spooked me a bit,” she said. “You almost have this irrational feeling of who’s it coming for next?”

Rendall said it was frustrating for Lifeline to have uncertain funding year after year.

“[Lifeline] can never plan a year out because you never know how much funding you’re going to get,” she said.

Lifeline has also lost several other contracts in the last few years which did not directly relate to its helpline but have affected its overall ability to deliver its services. This included a contract for the Depression Helpline made famous by Sir John Kirwan.

Schnell rejected any suggestion the organisation had lost favour with the Government. “Not at all,” she said.

Lifeline has a commercial contract to promote The 72 Club campaign with the Herald’s parent company NZME.