Why are house values up Hamilton but down in other cities?

Sunday, 8 June 2025

Once dubbed “the city of the future”, Hamilton was the only main centre where property values crept up in May.

Kirikiriroa Hamilton property values inched up in May, data released this week shows.

While Hamilton’s rise was slight, at 0.1%, values dropped in the other main centres.

Accessibility and geographic location, are just some of the city’s benefits.

It has no beaches, and it’s not at the top of holiday hot spot lists, but one New Zealand city is bucking the downwards trend for house values in other cities.

Once nicknamed “city of the future”, could Kirikiriroa Hamilton be hitting its stride?

The ease of getting around, from one side of town to the other, is one of Hamilton’s attractions, real estate agent Lisa Sigley said.

In May, property values in the city rose 0.1%, data released this week by Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) showed.

While that rise was slight, the other big cities went the other way. Christchurch had the greatest drop for May at -0.8%, followed by Wellington, -0.4%, Auckland, -0.3%, and Tauranga and Dunedin dropping -0.1%.

So what is keeping Hamilton on the up?

Co-founder Luke Sinclair moved his business FTN Motion from Wellington to Te Rapa in Hamilton.

Electric motorcycle company, FTN Motion, moved from Wellington to Hamilton last year.

Co-founder Luke Sinclair said it was a hard decision to leave the capital where they had an “awesome team” and core customer base, but a key factor was leasing commercial property, which was hard to come by in Wellington.

“We need a lot of floor space for making motorcycles.”

Hamilton offered that, as well as being close to the main ports for the company’s focus on international expansion, Sinclair said.

Hamilton’s treasured cricket stadium, Seddon Park.

“We were thinking how do we be in Auckland without being in Auckland?”

A strong community of local manufacturing in Hamilton has allowed the company to keep costs down, and keep more of the assembly in New Zealand, he said.

“There’s an awesome business community here for starting something. It’s surprising to not see more in the tech space, with the proximity to Auckland.”

Property values in Kirikiriroa Hamilton edged up 0.1% in May, but went down in the other main centres, data from Cotality (formerly Corelogic) shows.

Sports broadcaster James McOnie, said the city he went to school in has good schools, a great university, and “incredible” sporting facilities, including an indoor roller hockey stadium, “that’s some Denmark level stuff”.

The city’s “intimate” international cricket and rugby stadiums would be hard to beat, while it had active theatre groups, a new theatre underway, and cultural diversity, McOnie said.

“If you play soccer in the weekend you’ll be playing against people from around the world. Hamilton’s this awesome melting pot now.”

A real estate agent in Hamilton for 25 years, Lisa Sigley has “seen it all”.

Hamilton’s population grew 23% from 2013 to 2023.

While the market is still fickle, since interest rates started dropping, Sigley described what she has seen as “house swapping”.

That’s first home buyers moving into suburbs like Dinsdale, those Dinsdale home owners upgrading to Western Heights, and the Western Heighters moving to Rototuna, she said.

And where do they go from Rototuna? “Aussie,” Sigley says.

Hamilton city stood out among the main centres because of its resilience, Cotality chief economist Kelvin Davidson said.

While some may be departing, census data shows Hamilton’s population continues to climb. In the decade to 2023, it shot up 23%, from 141,612 to 174,741.

Sigley said one of the draws to Hamilton is the ease of getting around.

“Everywhere is only 10 minutes away, you can get from Glenview (in the south) to Rototuna (in the north) in 12 minutes.”

And although there are no beaches on the doorstep, “fantastic” stretches of sand are only an hour or so away at Raglan, the Coromandel, or Bay of Plenty, she said.

Work opportunities play their part too, Sigley said.

“If you look at what’s planned for the inland port, that’s massive, that’s a 50 year project. I think that’s another reason there’s good employment, and if you want to work there’s a job.”

Stable weather is another plus, with neither extreme temperatures nor weather events, she said.

Cotality chief economist Kelvin Davidson said Hamilton has stood out, not only amongst the main centres, but also the rest of the country, not because it’s booming “but because it’s been resilient and shown a little bit of growth”.

Dairy farming around Hamilton is a key contributor to the city’s stability, Davidson said.

““The agricultural sector’s going pretty well, that might be driving spending into the city and giving the housing market a bit of confidence.”

Davidson also pointed to the “golden triangle” argument that puts Hamilton at the centre of the Auckland, Waikato, and Bay of Plenty regions that, combined, account for around half the country’s population and economic productivity.

While Kirikiriroa Hamilton has always been popular with property investors, he said.

And what’s the most popular part of town for property? Glenview is the star for affordability and convenience, Sigley said.

An average, three-bedroom 1970s brick home in a good Glenview street sells for around $700,000, she said.

While across Aotearoa New Zealand, property values edged down in May by -0.1%, to $818,132, that’s 16.3% below the January 2022 peak, the report said.