Million-dollar streets don’t look to be a rarity anymore, the latest property data shows, with even small towns boasting at least one street where house prices are fetching an average of seven figures.
Valocity data shows there are more than 600 streets across the South Island - excluding Christchurch, Queenstown-Lakes, and Dunedin - where the average house price is now above $1,000,000.
These include Pages Rd in Timaru, Severne St in Marlborough’s Yelverton, Lookout D in Little Valley, Otago, Kereru Lane in Gore, and Okari Rd in Cape Foulwind on the West Coast.
All of the residential addresses have clicked over the top dollar between the past three to four years.
Okari Rd is the most recent getting the label only in May this year. There are currently only seven homes built on the seaside strip on the West Coast where the average price sits at $1,010,000.
There is also a strong concentration of million-dollar-plus homes on Pages Rd in Timaru. All properties have a medium value of $1,170,000, with some valued at more than $2m.
Valocity senior research analyst Wayne Shum said the houses being built now are generally of higher quality, and a little larger which results in a higher value.
He said one of the drivers for the increase in prices in smaller towns is down to more people being willing to move out of the main cities due to the ability to work from home.
A lot of the South Island million-dollar roads are small in size.
“It’s quite often people get an exclusive subdivision of high-quality houses, making it quite easy to reach a million dollars on average,” Shum said.
OneRoof data shows nationwide average property value currently sits at $952,000.
Editor Owen Vaughan said the markets are close to doing it again.
He said during the downturn it collapsed below a million but it’s starting to regain ground.
“The housing market has definitely turned a corner,” he said.
Christchurch’s average property value has gone up 3.1 per cent in the last three months, reaching $765,000. Auckland is sitting at $1.3m, up 1.6 per cent, while Wellington’s average house price is $986,000, a rise of 1.5 per cent. The national average is $952,000, increasing by 0.8 per cent.
Vaughan said the gain is quite sizeable.
New Zealand’s average property value hit a peak of $1.098m in February 2022. It first crossed the million-dollar mark in 2021.
Shum said it will be a long time before all roads reach an average of a million dollars - but it’s not impossible.
“It’s still a long way away yet.”
By Courtney Winter
