Auckland homeowners are having to wait longer than expected for their new property valuations.
Auckland homeowners are having to wait longer than expected for their new property valuations.
Auckland homeowners face more delays in receiving new property valuations, which are not expected until May at the earliest.
The valuations, reflecting the market as of May 1 last year, show little change since 2021.
The delay is due to the Valuer-General requesting amendments to ensure accuracy before public release.
Auckland homeowners are enduring a long wait to receive new city-wide valuations, which are expected to show little movement from the last valuations in 2021.
Auckland Council has completed the new valuations used to set rates but their release has been pushed back from late last year to sometime in May or later this year.
The capital values (CVs) are also a 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.
The latest valuations reflect the market as of May 1 last year when OneRoof figures show Auckland’s average property value was $1.31 million. 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 and fell to 2021 levels by the latest valuations in May last year, according to OneRoof figures.
The data will cover 547,350 residential, 43,663 business and 30,186 farm and lifestyle properties.
Auckland Council head of rates, revaluations and data management, Rhonwen Heath told the Herald last October the latest valuations will “now be released in early 2025”. The CVs were previously due to go out in late 2024.
In October, she put the delay down to the Valuer-General, who audits the figures, requesting additional work before public release.
This week, Heath said after an audit in September last year the Valuer-General advised the data required some amendments to ensure it accurately reflects the market on May 1 and before the valuations could be certified for public release.
“The main issues relate to rating valuations being consistently applied across the region in relation to sales data, zoning, and development potential,” she said.
The council plans to submit the revaluation file to the Valuer-General in April, meaning it will be a position in May to confirm when the valuations will be publicly released, Heath said.
The new valuations apply to about 550,000 homes across Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig
Heath said the council is making every effort to complete the process so the new valuations can be used to set the 2025 rates from July 1. She would not speculate on missing the date and delaying the use of the new valuations to set rates until 2026.
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 or decrease 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.
Tom Rawson, a real estate agent in South Auckland, said CVs play a part in people buying and selling homes, but online portals such as OneRoof were more accurate because they were updated more frequently.
