The suburbs closest to crossing $ 1 million next sit almost entirely outside Auckland, and they cluster in exactly the regions that held their ground through the downturn.
If their recent pace holds, Cromwell in Central Otago, Aidanfield in Christchurch and Matua in Tauranga, all currently $ 980,000 to $ 990,000, would cross in the next six months.
Ilam and Marshland back in Christchurch, at a median of $ 960,000 and $ 972,000 respectively, would follow within the year.
A second group is one to two years behind on the same path: Strandon in New Plymouth, Hospital Hill in Napier, and Frimley in Hastings. Further out again, within two to three years, come Waikanae Beach on the Kapiti Coast and Burnside in Christchurch, provincial and suburban names that rarely feature in a conversation about million-dollar housing at all.
Auckland and Wellington are absent.
At current trends, neither has a suburb approaching $ 1 million from below. In both cities prices have drifted since the boom rather than climbed, and their existing milliondollar suburbs have thinned rather than multiplied, so the line is retreating in the very places that once defined it.
Source: REINZ, Ray White Economics
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