Queenstown Lakes district remains one of the least affordable districts in the country for first-home buyers, while the rest of Otago and Dunedin falls well within the boundaries of mortgage affordability.
Also highlighted for affordability is the separate Quotable Value data on the cost of building a new home, with Dunedin the cheapest of the country's four main centres.
QV has recently scrutinised housing build costs, in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, with spokeswoman Andrea Rush noting costs across the country had risen 25.5% since the last real estate peak of 2007.
''Auckland and Christchurch still remain the most expensive places to build a home out of the four cities,'' she said.
Building costs in Wellington had risen the most during the past year, while in Christchurch they had eased the most, as the rebuild sees demand beginning to meet supply.
She said recent building consent data showed either a flattening or downward trend in building consents across the country, since numbers had peaked at a 12-year high mid-last year.
New homeowners are exempt from the Reserve Bank's loan to value ratio (LVR) restrictions, when building a new house, but buying into the existing market remains unaffordable for many.
Nationally, first-home buyers need to spend 22% of a couples' take-home pay, well below the 40% unaffordability line.
However, in Auckland that percentage breaches the 40% unaffordable threshold, at 45% and in Queenstown Lakes that rises further to 55.8%, according to data released last week by interest.co.nz's home loan affordability series.
In Auckland it would take 7.3 years to save the required 20% deposit, where the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand's lower quartile selling price was $665,000 in May, compared with two years in Southland, where the price was just $174,000 in May, Greg Ninness, of interest.co, said.
Underpinning Queenstown's unaffordability is not only high house prices, but lower median pay packets associated with some service sectors.
For the data, first-home buyers are a couple aged 25 to 29, working fulltime to buy a house in the lower quartile of their chosen area, who saved at least 20% of their weekly net pay for four years towards a deposit.
First-home buyers may be eligible for the Welcome Home Loan which would only require a 10% deposit; which is what the following examples are based on.
Mortgage repayments are considered affordable when taking up no more than 40% of their collective take-home pay, based on median pay rates for their area.
A lower quartile house in the Queenstown area costs $750,000.
A couple in Queenstown, with a $55,400 deposit and take-home pays of $1389, take out a $694,6000 mortgage then make $828 weekly mortgage payments, or 55.8% of their pays.
''On that basis it would not be affordable for a young couple earning the median pay rate to buy a lower quartile-priced home in the Queenstown lakes district,'' interest.co said.
However, the high $750,000 Queenstown price tag would likely make them ineligible for the Welcome Home Loan.
A lower quartile house in Dunedin costs $277,000.
A couple in Dunedin, with a $37,800 deposit and take-home pays of $1389, would have to take out a $239,200 mortgage then make $269 weekly mortgage payments - or 19.4% of their pays.
Around Otago a lower quartile house costs $257,300.
An Otago couple, with a $66,280 deposit and take-home pays of $1485, would have to take out a $191,020 mortgage then make $249 weekly mortgage payments, or 16.8% of their combined pay packets.
