Auckland Home Prices: Herne Bay Approaching $ 3 Million, Home Values ​​Rising $ 1800 a Day

Herne Bay homeowners are now reaching the top division of the Lotto with every home sold, as the typical suburb sales price approaches $ 3 million.

Homes in the prestigious neighborhood now average $ 2,955 million, just $ 45,000 from being the first New Zealand suburb to break the $ 3 million mark.

Its typical asking price is up $ 660,000 in the past year with about half the increase in the past month and a half as the Auckland property market got very hot, an analysis from real estate website OneRoof and data partner showed. Valocity.

By comparison, a typical Auckland worker would need to spend nearly 10 years working hard at a full-time job to earn the same amount.

Or put another way, Herne Bay’s values ​​effectively increased by $ 1808 every day for the past year.

That’s equivalent to Herne Bay households generating nearly double the typical Kiwi weekly wage of $ 1,189 full-time every day for a year.

Aucklander Helen Hill and her husband said huge price increases had made finding a home very difficult.

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

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

“We missed several auctions and had to start looking outside of the central suburbs to get something in our price range.”

His difficult home search came as the Auckland market surprised experts by going on a streak of record price increases since the Covid-19 shutdown in New Zealand in March.

The city’s median sales price topped $ 1 million for the first time in October. Record sale prices were driven by “fear of missing out” among buyers and historically low interest rates that made home loans cheaper.

Valocity’s chief valuation officer James Wilson said Herne Bay had long led the way, being the first New Zealand suburb to hit a median sales price of $ 1 million in 2004, before crossing the $ 1 million mark. 2 million in 2015.

Now, just five years later, it was on the verge of breaking the $ 3 million mark when luxury homeowners joined the home buying frenzy.

“That increase has been the result of demand from buyers at the higher end of the market outpacing supply,” he said.

The executive director of the Real Estate Institute, Bindi Norwell, said Herne Bay’s status as New Zealand’s most exclusive suburb, home to real estate moguls, Hollywood stars and celebrities, was obvious.

“Herne Bay properties often have large grounds, pools, and many have panoramic views of Waitematā harbor,” he said.

Bayleys Ponsonby realtor Blair Haddow said it was not surprising that the suburb’s median sales price was around $ 3 million.

“Anything good is worth more than $ 3 million. Less than $ 3 million is probably a reward,” he said.

“The demand [for Herne Bay homes] It has been unprecedented, and it is being driven by many different factors, such as returning expats, people whose houses are not big enough or too big. I think it will continue until next year as well, it may even get busier. “

Herne Bay home sellers aren’t the only ones counting their pennies.

According to OneRoof-Valocity figures, there are now 10 Auckland suburbs with average property values ​​of more than $ 2 million, up from three a year ago.

Saint Marys Bay is second on the list with a median sale price of $ 2.7 million, followed by Whitford with $ 2.5 million.

New members to the club include Westmere, Ponsonby, Remuera, Epsom and Glendowie, all of whom have increased 20 to 30 percent in the past year.

The number of suburbs in the city of more than a million dollars also increased, from 123 a year ago to 179 now.

Across the country, 280 suburbs posted average value increases of $ 300,000 or more in the past year, 64 of them in Auckland.

“And only nine of the city’s suburbs are in worse condition now than they were at the start of the Covid crisis,” said Wilson of Valocity.

“At the beginning of November, that number was 36, which shows how fast the market is moving.”

Steve Koerber of Ray White Remuera said his agency had been making record monthly sales for each of the past few months, and the buying frenzy had now led to a shortage of homes for sale.

“There have been so many sales recently that Remuera was down to just over 100 listings, and a lot of them are apartments, new construction, off-plan stuff.”

Derek von Sturmer of Professionals Point Chevalier said his office sold 20 homes last month, more than double what he would expect in a normal November.

“I have never seen anything like this. The investigation has been conducted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” he said.

National home prices had also risen to a new record of $ 730,000.

That included Wellington’s median property value that was just $ 10,000 under $ 1 million for the first time after its prices jumped $ 240,000 in the last 12 months.

“House prices in Christchurch have also broken a major psychological barrier,” said Valocity’s Wilson.

“Median property value in the city had been persistently under half a million dollars for five years, but early buyers and investors upped their game there in recent months.”

Of the 72 district areas in New Zealand measured in the Valocity data, nearly half had annual growth of 20 percent or more. Wairoa, Rangitīkei and Gisborne saw the largest increases.