More houses sell for $1m – here’s what it buys
What does a milliondollar property look like in 2019? It depends a lot on where in the country you live.
It could be a house on the beach at Pa¯ pa¯ moa, in the Bay of Plenty, a section by the water with its own Mooring in Acacia Bay, Taupo¯ , or a five-bedroom home on 2262 sq m of land in Redwood, Christchurch.
If you’re in Auckland, you might get something like a threebedroom home in Howick that recently sold for $1.05m, or a renovated three-bedroom house on 938 sq m in Te Atatu¯ Peninsula.
New Real Estate Institute data shows the 10,615 properties sold around the country for $1m or more in 2018 was 4.5 per cent higher than in 2017, although still significantly down on the 11,648 million-dollar-plus sales in 2016.
Of those, 7888 were sold in Auckland last year, a drop of
1.6 per cent for the city.
It was the lowest number of
$1m-plus sales in four years. Outside Auckland, the number of million-dollar sales was up
26.9 per cent, to 2727.
The region with the largest year-on-year increase was Marlborough which saw an increase of 90 per cent – from 11 properties sold for $1m or more in
2017 to 21 properties sold for $1m or more in 2018. Manawatu¯ / Whanganui had the next biggest increase, of 83.3 per cent, or 22 instead of 12 sales in 2017.
Northland had the thirdbiggest jump, with 112 changing hands for seven figures, up from
69 in 2017.
‘‘All regions, except Auckland and Southland, reached record numbers of properties sold for
$1m or more in 2018,’’ Real Estate Institute chief executive Bindi Norwell said.
Real estate commentator and salesperson Alistair Helm said while a $1m price tag was still a marker of a significant property in Wellington or Christchurch, buyers in Auckland were more blase about it.
‘‘It’s funny how time moves on and inflation erodes the sense of it being a high hurdle.’’
Properties sold in Auckland for
$1m would probably not be what many people still thought of when they imagined a property in that price bracket.
He said to count as ‘‘highervalue’’, houses in exclusive parts of Auckland would need to be selling for $5m or $10m.
There were 414 sales nationwide for between $3m and
$5m, the bulk of which were in Auckland.
Auckland had 63 sales for more than $5m in 2018. Canterbury and Wellington had one each and Otago five.