Top city - top prices

Once the scene of seedy lodging houses and commercial buildings, Auckland’s CBD and inner-city suburbs have become a cultural hotspot and home to the affluent and urbane.

In the 1980s and 1990s inner-city culture was revived. Shop trading and hotel opening hours and gambling laws were freed, encouraging more cafes, restaurants, nightclubs, casinos and entertainment, along with a surge of apartment building in the 2000s.

Sitting just outside the 40,000 CBD apartments are some of the country’s most expensive suburbs, awash with old villas and early Auckland transitional houses, in areas such as Herne Bay where the average house price now stands at $3,158,500, a 16.80% increase in the past year, the latest CoreLogic data reveals.

Central Auckland suburbs sitting in the $2 million average price range, include Westmere, with an average price of $2,346,900 an increase of 20.40% in a year; Ponsonby at $2,263,200, a rise of 19.80% over the past year; and St Marys Bay, with an average price of $2,787,100, up 19% in a year.