The region where home affordability has changed the most over the long term (and no, it’s not Queenstown)

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Stuff Chief Property correspondent Janika ter Ellen breaks down new regional data showing how much household income is eaten up by mortgage payments, from the most affordable regions to the near-impossible reality in Queenstown.

We looked back to 2004 to see which parts of New Zealand became harder or easier to buy in over time.

House prices matter, but so does what’s happened to incomes.

The biggest shift was not in Queenstown but in a South Island district where incomes have struggled to keep pace with house prices.

Check out how your region stacks up, below.

When people talk about housing affordability, they usually compare one place with another.

But there is another way to look at it: how much harder or easier it has become to buy a home in the place you already live.

By that measure, the biggest shift in New Zealand has not happened in Queenstown, but in the Mackenzie District.

A constant stream of visitors in places like Lake Tekapo in the McKenzie District have added tourist dollars, but made it harder for locals to buy homes.

Today, the average household buying the average house in Mackenzie would need to spend 51% of its income on a mortgage. Across the last 22 years, the average was 40%.

In other words, local incomes have not kept pace with what homes now cost.

We looked at mortgage payments as a percentage of household income back to 2004 to see which regions have changed the most and which have moved in the other direction.

If you want to see how your region compares today, check out the tables below.

Regions that have become less affordable

Mackenzie District, the South Canterbury region which includes Fairlie, Twizel and Aoraki/Mount Cook, experienced the biggest deterioration in affordability over the period we looked at, becoming 26% less affordable than its long-run average.

“McKenzie’s income has lagged over time, it’s in the bottom 10 areas for income growth over time,” says Cotality’s chief property economist Kelvin Davidson.

“So, a bit like Queenstown and Coromandel, people coming in with outside wealth make it harder for locals to buy. The area is popular for holiday homes in places like Twizel and Tekapo, so that’s pushed house prices up at the same time local incomes have lagged.”

Queenstown Lakes is 19% less affordable today, compared to the last couple of decades. That’s partly because tourism and wealth from outside the region have pushed up house prices massively over time.

Gore and Invercargill are 16% less affordable compared to their own long-term average.

But the picture changes when you compare the less affordable areas with other parts of New Zealand.

For example, in Invercargill, the average household buying the average house would spend 28% of its income on a mortgage. That is still far lower than Auckland, where buyers today would spend 47%.

“Affordability is absolute, but also relative, and you've got to look at a lot of ways. Relative to other parts of the country, relative to its own history, relative to what people might think is reasonable or not reasonable,” says Davidson.

Regions that have become more affordable

But not everywhere became harder to buy in. Wairoa, in northern Hawke’s Bay, stands out because it is 29% more affordable now than it has been over the last couple of decades.

That’s because incomes have risen while house prices stayed relatively low.

(You can read more about Wairoa here, including the story of a young family who bought a home for just $121,000.)

Kaipara and Marlborough are 18% more affordable now than they have normally been since 2004, while the Far North is 15% more affordable.

“Over time those markets have seen an improvement in incomes,” says Davidson. “There’s been income growth, which has probably outpaced some income growth in other parts of the country, so that has made affordability look a little bit better.”

How your region compares

Wairoa is among the most affordable areas at the moment.

Looking at the affordability of your region compared to other areas of New Zealand can often make things look quite different.

For instance, Wellington is now slightly more affordable than Christchurch, with 34% of household income needed for a mortgage today. In Christchurch, you’d need 38%.

Wairoa, Rangitikei and Clutha are the most affordable areas at the moment. The average income household buying the average house today in those places would spend around a quarter of income on mortgage payments.

For those buying and earning in Auckland, people would need to spend 47% of their household income, while the national average sits at 40%.

Check out the graphs here to see how your region compares with others.

How we crunched the numbers

With the help of Cotality and Infometrics, we looked at the latest household income data from salaries, wages and benefits and compared it with the latest house prices for each region.

These calculations do not include wealth from investments, or wealth brought in from outside a region.

So, if someone lives in Auckland and owns a home in Hawke’s Bay, for example, that is not captured.

This is really a measure of how affordable buying is for ordinary people living and earning in the same town, without outside wealth brought to the table.