New Zealand’ s next million dollar suburbs
ATOM GO TIAN ECONOMIST, RAY WHITE GROUP
A decade ago,“ million-dollar suburb” was really an‘ Auckland’ phrase, says Ray White Group Economist, Atom Go Tian.
In 2016, New Zealand had 79 suburbs with a median house price above $ 1 million, and 76 of them were in Auckland. The only other three elsewhere were Kennedys Bush in Christchurch, Opito Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula, and Kelvin Heights in Queenstown.
Everywhere else, the million-dollar suburb simply did not exist, yet.
Following the pandemic boom, million-dollar suburbs appeared almost everywhere, only to be pulled back unevenly by the downturn that followed.
Auckland’ s eased from 183 to 135. Meanwhile, Christchurch grew to 12 by 2022 and kept climbing to 15.
It’ s the same story across many smaller markets, which gained million-dollar suburbs during the pandemic and held or grew them through the downturn.
That durability is what matters: it suggests the spread of the million-dollar suburb into Canterbury, Central Otago and the Bay of Plenty is a lasting change in the country’ s geography of wealth, not a passing artefact of the boom.
Auckland remains far and away the country’ s largest concentration of million-dollar suburbs, but its count has slipped from its peak, and the growth has moved elsewhere.
Wellington’ s tally of million-dollar suburbs fell from 37 to 11.
Source: REINZ, Ray White Economics
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