Auckland property valuations have been delayed for a second time.
Auckland property valuations have been delayed for a second time.
Auckland home owners’ property valuations have been delayed again, now expected sometime this year.
The delay follows a Valuer-General audit requiring more work for consistency in data and zoning.
The new valuations, reflecting May 2024 market values, are used for setting future rates and buying and selling houses.
Auckland home owners’ new property valuations have been delayed for a second time and could be up to 18 months out of date when homeowners finally receive them.
Auckland Council has completed the new valuations as of May 1 last year, used to set rates. However, their releasehas been pushed back from late last year, to May of this year, and now sometime in 2025.
“We will be in a better position to confirm the exact timeline in May, once we have confirmation from our valuation partners and the Valuer-General,” the council’s head of rates, revaluations, and data management, Rhonwen Heath, said yesterday.
Following an audit of the new valuations last September, the Valuer-General requested more work to provide consistency in sales data, zoning, and development potential before the new values could be released.
The new valuations have been delayed again. Photo / Nick Reed
Since October, the council has been working on when to resubmit the property revaluation data to the Valuer-General.
Valuer-General Neill Sullivan said the Auckland revaluations were due to be reviewed in May, and it was his job to approve revaluations to assure property owners the values were accurate for setting rates.
The capital values (CVs) are a massive source of fascination for property-mad Aucklanders when it comes to buying and selling homes, and involve the council estimating the value of every residential and commercial property in the region.
OneRoof figures show Auckland’s average property value was $1.31 million when the latest valuations were taken on May 1 last year. This is marginally less than the average property value of $1.37m when Auckland CVs were last taken in June 2021.
Between the two sets of CVs, Auckland property prices peaked at $1.58m in January 2022 then fell to 2021 levels by the latest valuations in May last year, according to OneRoof figures.
Since May 2024 and April this year, the city’s average property value has dipped by 0.8% from $1.31m to $1.3m.
Heath said that given the scale of revaluing 630,000 residential, business, farm and lifestyle properties, the council was using two property valuation companies, one of which is Opteon.
The second valuer is the state-owned enterprise QV.
A source claimed to the Herald that Opteon had taken on valuations for several councils and was struggling to process all the work, even using non-licensed graduate valuers and assistants.
Heath said Opteon had prioritised Auckland Council’s valuations and met their obligations to deliver the valuation data on time.
“Like many businesses, there can be a range of staff involved in project delivery. In this instance, fully registered valuers are responsible for the quality of data produced and must peer review any values completed by support staff,” she said.
Opteon operation director Avella Taylor said the company was working with the council to deliver the 2024 revaluations within the agreed processes and timeframes.
“We’re focused on delivering compliant and quality valuations,” said Taylor, saying its operations were supported by a worldwide team and 36 registered valuers in Auckland.
Heath said the council was making every effort to complete the revaluation process so the new CVs could be applied to rates from July 1.
If the council misses that deadline, this year’s rates will be set using the 2021 CVs and the new CVs will be used to set rates in 2026.
The new valuations determine how much Auckland property owners pay in rates.
The revaluation exercise does not change the total amount of rates revenue the council collects but helps distribute rates fairly between ratepayers.
Under an allocation mechanism, properties whose value has risen by more than the overall average increase will pay more in rates than the general rates increase this year, proposed to be 5.8%.
The opposite is true for valuations below the overall average. Their rates will fall relative to the general rates increase.
OneRoof editor Owen Vaughan said that while CVs were largely irrelevant in an era where up-to-date property valuation data was published on multiple sites, “they are still an important crutch to many buyers and sellers in the market and are often the go-to figure when quickly assessing how much a home is worth”.
“Further delays just make it harder to gauge the Auckland housing market. The current CVs are from 2021 when prices were skyrocketing – they don’t exactly reflect current prices.
“The new ones may be equally past their sell-by date when they come out and leave buyers frustrated.”
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