Wayne Brown says falling values and rising rates in Auckland just ‘the way it is’

Tuesday, 10 June 2025

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says rates increase of 5.8% is lowest for any major city.

Property valuations across Auckland down by 9% on average, reflecting nationwide economic trends.

Aotea Great Barrier Island only Auckland region with increase in capital values, up 38%.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown wants to remind people that they’ll have among the lowest rate rises to cope with, of any city in New Zealand, as they discover that the rateable value of their house has dropped.

Across the city on Tuesday, Aucklanders have been checking the updated property valuations of their house on the Auckland Council website, and for many they will have seen declines in value by 10s of thousands of dollars.

(“Auckland Council has seen a spike in web traffic today, relating to the update of residential rating valuations. Typically we see around 500 users at any given time, where today we’re seeing over 12,000 users accessing the site,” Neil McGowan, General Manager Technology Services at Auckland Council.)

On average, the valuations have dropped by 9% from when they were last done in 2021.

“The good news is that our rate rise is the same 5.8% that we promised last year in the Long-Term Plan, and it'll still be the lowest of any of the cities, by a long way, and that's the good news,” Brown said.

The mayor told Stuff it will be disappointing for homeowners to see the drop in rateable values, but at least the assessments got done.

“Well, first of all, we're glad to see that they've done it in time to set the rates, which was a worry, because we don't control any of this,” Brown said.

“This is a government valuer that does this. So they've come out, and the average is 9% down, which is unfortunate in one way, but on the other hand, that's the way it is.”

How has the ratings evaluations affected you? Email newstips@stuff.co.nz

Rating valuations were based on market trends and recent sales activity, as of May 1 2024, and were not intended to reflect current market value.

But the assessments were used to calculate rates across Auckland’s 630,000 properties, and on July 1, Aucklanders will get their new rates bill.

How Auckland stacks up with other cities

Hamiltonians were facing an average rate increase of 15.5%. It’s 12.2% for Wellington, it is likely to be 9% for Christchurch this year, and the proposal for Tauranga is 12%.

Brown feels the drop in valuations across Auckland reflects a nationwide trend rather than something just occurring in the country’s biggest city.

“The economy's been faltering for a while, and there's not much I can do about that. It's really driven by government policies rather than Auckland's policies,” Brown said.

“But we do want a few things. If they opened up the visas to China, that would lift our incomes quite a lot, and then what I was doing with the technology alliance would move to lift incomes a lot as well.

“So we are doing the best that we can and keeping our costs low, and at a time when we're doing everything too, because part of those new rates is to finish the work on the City Rail Link, which was committed a long time ago.”

How Auckland suburbs fared

Aotea Great Barrier Island was the only Auckland region to have an increase in CV, going up 38%.

In Rodney, there was no change, while in Franklin, there was a 1% decrease. But it was in the central suburbs where there was the biggest drop, with owners inside the Waitemata Local Board seeing a 13% fall since 2021, which was the same for Whau, Albert-Eden, Mangere-Otahuhu and Maungakiekie-Tamaki. Puketapapa suffered the greatest drop, down 14%.

“There have always been some areas doing better than others,” Brown said.

“There are times when the rural economy is doing better than the city economy and vice versa.

“At the moment, fortunately for New Zealand, the dairy prices are pretty strong, but Auckland's got to pull its weight with lifting its high-tech incomes, which are quite substantial already, but need to grow a lot.

“That's the thing, we can grow. We can't plant more grass because we don't have any, but we can certainly lift our high-tech incomes, and that's what we're trying to do.”