20 October 2015
Auckland house prices rising 35% faster than Sydney

Recent house price data shows Auckland house prices are now rising 35 per cent faster than those in Sydney, Labour’s Housing spokesperson Phil Twyford says.

“At this rate, an average house in Auckland could cost more than one in Sydney within months. It is absurd that Ponsonby is about to outprice Paddington.

“John Key claims moves in Australia to ban non-resident foreign buyers from buying existing homes have been ‘spectacularly unsuccessful’. If Australia’s policy has been such a failure, this shows National’s lack of action is producing even worse results.

Figures from Australian property analysts Core Logic show in the year to September, house prices in Sydney – Australia’s fastest growing city – grew by 16.7 per cent. The average Sydney house now costs $NZ838,817.

Over the same period, New Zealand’s Quotable Value estimates Auckland house prices rose by 22.6 per cent. The median Auckland house now costs $771,000.

“So despite incomes being lower in New Zealand, the median house price in our biggest city is now within $68,000 of Australia’s most expensive city. It won’t be long until Auckland overtakes Sydney.

“This is a shameful indictment of a Government which spent years refusing to acknowledge there was a housing crisis and then took grudging half-measures to make it look like it was doing something.

“National needs to accept that if it wants to seriously address the housing crisis, it needs to launch a massive state-backed building programme to flood the market with affordable houses and crackdown on speculators by banning non-resident foreign buyers from purchasing existing homes,” Phil Twyford says.

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