The property market has dipped recently, but a new CoreLogic report shows values in South Wairarapa have skyrocketed in the past decade.
“Sales volumes are running at their lowest levels for a decade, and the pace of decline in average property values is rivalling, or even getting a bit worse than, the GFC episode,” CoreLogic’s September quarterly report said.
Despite this, South Wairarapa house prices have increased 205 per cent since 2012.
South Wairarapa’s average house price lifted from $282,938 in September 2012 to $862,834 in September this year, making it one of five regions nationally which had seen an increase of more than 200 per cent. In the same period, nationwide average property values increased by 136 per cent from $414,008 in 2012 to $977,158 in 2022.
While property values have soared, wages have lagged significantly behind.
The median personal income in South Wairarapa has increased by only 13 per cent from $28,900 in the 2013 census to $32,900 in the most recent one taken by Statistics New Zealand in 2018.
Home ownership rates have declined in the same period: in the 2013 census, 27.8 per cent of households in South Wairarapa did not own the house they occupied.
In the 2018 census, that number increased to 33.1 per cent.
House prices have boomed for a decade, but this year have finally begun trending downward.
Masterton has seen a 10.7 per cent decline in property values during the past three months, while Carterton has seen a 5.1 per cent decline, and South Wairarapa has seen a 4.7 per cent decline.
