The property research company, Cotality, has published data revealing the performance of suburbs nationwide.
During the three months leading up to September, 56% of suburbs experienced a decline in house prices. However, approximately 40% of these suburbs saw price decreases of less than 1%.
Overall, 33% of suburbs experienced house value declines of at least 1%, while 44% saw values increase or stay unchanged.
Several areas saw house price increases exceeding 5%, such as Cobden in Grey District, Springs Junction in Buller, and Alton in South Taranaki.
Takapuna and Clevedon in Auckland recorded declines of nearly 4%.
The largest drops in townhouse prices, exceeding 5%, occurred in places like Otangarei in Whangarei, Taihape, Inglewood, and Paihia.
However, areas like Queenstown Hill, Brighton in Dunedin, central Whangarei, and Huntington in Hamilton experienced townhouse price increases of 5% or more.
Chief property economist Kelvin Davidson said people might assume townhouse values were underperforming, especially in Auckland where there has been a construction boom, but the data does not support this.
“There’s a lot of them coming online, but there’s a lot of buyers for them, too.”
“Demand is there, and they are cheaper than standalone houses. We’ve seen a lot of first-time buyer demand out there in the market,” he said.
Davidson said the market was uneven, which aligns with the overall trend of median values gradually declining.
“I think it’s all tracking sideways.
“Some suburbs are up, some are down… the patchiness is something we’ve seen throughout the year, really, with interest rates down but other factors pushing the other way on house prices, things like the weak economy, weak labour market, subdued confidence, and lots of listings.
“While it’s difficult to generalise across the various trends at a suburb level, there is certainly some resilience among standalone houses and townhouses in lower-priced areas, which will tend to have affordability on their side.”
He said property values are expected to stay sluggish for the time being, but conditions may be shifting toward price growth next year.
“Affordability in some ways has returned closer to normal so that restraint goes away to some extent. The lagged effect of lower mortgage rates will progressively pass through. We’re going to see almost half of mortgages reset their interest rate in the next six months…”
“It looks like the economy and labour market will be turning around to some extent in 2026, and then listings have declined as well, so that rise in sales activity is starting to erode listings just a little bit.”
“The things that have restrained house prices this year do seem likely to turn around next year now.”