In April 2025, New Zealand’s median house price fell to $781,000, a 1.1% decrease from the previous year. While the national average asking price dropped 1.7% year-on-year to $852,364, realestate.co.nz reported. Opes Partners noted that the average house price in New Zealand was $775,000 with an annual change of -0.62%. Auckland’s average house price was $1,000,000, while New Zealand ex-Auckland saw an average of $710,000. Now Aucklands house valuations have dropped further, in some cases, by as much as 9%. It is estimated that some 630,000 properties will be affected – because rates valuations are based on house valuations from 2024 its not expected that this drop will impact rates notices that are heading out this week from the Auckland City Council.
Auckland Council chief financial officer Ross Tucker said he was pleased to announce that the Valuer-General has now approved the new valuations for release to Aucklanders.
“As we know, the last council valuations from 1 June 2021 were completed close to the market peak and between then and May 2024 the economy and property market generally trended down. Therefore, as most people would expect, the May 2024 Capital Values (CVs) are lower than the previous 2021 CVs for many properties,” said Mr Tucker.
The overall CV movements between June 2021 and May 2024, by property type for Auckland, are:
- industrial +5%
- lifestyle +4%
- rural + 4%
- commercial -5%
- residential -9%.
In 2023, approximately 27.5% of Māori in New Zealand owned or partially owned their own homes. This figure is down from 31.2% a decade earlier. Overall, Māori home ownership rates are lower than those of Europeans in New Zealand. Iwi in Auckland have developed large residential property values. Some social services providers have told Waatea that we could see see an increase in the number of middle class whanau seeking support. Unemployment in Auckland has already been on the rise. In the year to March 2024, the annual average Māori unemployment rate in Auckland was 9.2%, up from 7.5% in the previous year. This rate was higher than in Tauranga City (6.3%) but lower than in Rotorua District (10.1%) and Hamilton City (11.6%). Since 2009, Auckland’s Māori unemployment rate has fluctuated, reaching a high of 14.2% in March 2013 and a low of 6.6% in 2022. Māori are disproportionately represented among the homeless population in Auckland. Over 40% of Auckland’s homeless population identifies as Māori. This overrepresentation is linked to factors like housing deprivation and poverty.
More to come
