Teacher’s homeowning dreams lured him south
Two years ago, mathematics teacher Samuel Buchanan was living in a old house in the Wellington suburb of Newtown with his fiancé.
His was a very typical experience. A good central location, but the housing quality was sorely lacking.
With the couple both working as fulltime teachers and paying $650 a week in rent, they calculated that, with support from both of their parents, they had the ability to purchase a house for $700,000.
After doing the sums, life in Wellington didn’t make financial sense. So they packed up and moved to Christchurch.
“I had the sad realisation that I could not live in the city we grew up in,” Buchanan said. “Not if we wanted pets and certainly not if we wanted bedrooms for a young family.”
Buchanan said Christchurch felt more vibrant and there were plenty of young families who’d moved from the likes of Wellington and Auckland.
“Talking to my peers, former colleagues, family, and being out and about around the city, Wellington has a brain drain.
“Whether it be young teachers, firefighters or psychologists, people are unhappy or moving.”
Christchurch offered about 1000 housing options to choose from, Buchanan said, thanks to an increased supply of medium density homes in suburbs close to the city.
In Wellington, he was left with just 190. Most were in places like Wainuiomata, a Lower Hutt suburb with notoriously poor links to the city centre for commuters. A friend had recently paid $1.1 million for a small section and an old three-bedroom house in Upper Hutt.
“What you’re getting is a long commute far away from the city and you just end up questioning the value of that.
“For the city as a whole, it ends up being a class thing. You have this commuter class made up of all these people that work in the centre of town, but can’t afford to live there ... and I’m sure that affects the character of the city.”
Buchanan contrasted that with his two-bedroom new-build in Waltham, five minutes from Christchurch’s city centre. The size, the quality of the property and proximity to amenities was unattainable in the capital, he said.
He knew people in Wellington who were finding better property offerings overseas too.
“My sister moved to Australia on Friday. She was flatting with six other people and she’s moved to Brisbane with her partner, who’s a police officer.
“It’s partly for the pay but I’ve seen pictures of their new accommodation and they’re a walkable distance from the city centre, close to the river, and have a backyard for their dog. It’s like chalk and cheese.”
According to a December 2023 Infometrics report, the average house price in Wellington City is $1,023,966 – roughly $100,000 more than the national average.
By contrast, CoreLogic measured the average house price in Christchurch as $757,881.
Wellington has long fought new-build developments, especially in the older inner city suburbs.
These “character areas” where Victorian villas still cling to the hills were described in a recent opinion piece in The Post by Eric Crampton as “wooden tents”, while by contrast he praised Lower Hutt’s initiative at constructing new-builds.
Buchanan attested to this, arguing the new builds in Christchurch only added to the character of the area.
“All around us, we see three-bedroom houses with sections being uprooted and replaced by two or three townhouses.
“There is competition in the sector down here and the increase in medium density housing supply is real. It doesn’t destroy the character of the neighbourhoods when it is done well.”
Even Housing and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop noted Christchurch was the only city that hadn’t seen dramatic increases to land and housing prices.
“I had the sad realisation that I could not live in the city we grew up in.” Samuel Buchanan