Provincial towns worst hit by housing affordability issues

Average property values surged by 6.1% in the final three months of the year, and by 11.1% over 2020, while the latest Infometrics figures show a rise of just 1.3% in average household income during the last quarter of last year.

Half of the major cities CoreLogic tracks registered a spike in house prices in the December 2020 quarter that exceeded the median national income of $55,000.

In the regions four new cities cracked the $500,000 average house value mark - Rotorua, Palmerston North, New Plymouth and Gisborne. In fact, Gisborne saw the single largest increase in average house value of any city, with the average home now going for $119,877 more than it was at the end of 2019. Tauranga, Wellington and the Kapiti Coast also saw average house prices jump by more than $100,000 over 2020.

In Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, Kapiti Coast and Queenstown the average house earned more in untaxed capital gains over the final three months of 2020 than the average New Zealander earned in pre-tax income over the entire year.