Martin Cooper: There will be mistakes with council valuations

·43 min·4 clips

Auckland homeowners discover their properties are valued 9% less on average in new council valuations.

The question is simple enough. If council valuations drop hard, has the property really lost that much value? The host keeps the panic dial turned down. Auckland's CVs come in as a reality check, with many owners seeing values down about 9% on average. His own dropped too, which gives the conversation a bit of everyday honesty instead of making the numbers sound abstract. Graham brings the sting. His unit title apartment looks like it has fallen from around a million dollars to $600,000. That is the sort of figure that can ruin a morning. The host and guest slow it down and separate a rateable value from a current appraisal. Rates are part of the worry, and Graham still has body corporate costs to carry. Those bills will not politely shrink just because a council number did. The guest gives the CV its place, but not too much power. It can draw a line in the sand. It is not the same as what buyers are paying now. The leasehold issue gets cleared up too. Graham says it is a unit title with a body corporate, not leasehold, so the concern shifts. The advice is plain enough to use: call a real estate agency, get an up-to-date appraisal, and look at recent sales before assuming equity has fallen by 30%. Graham's timing matters as well. He bought in 2011, three days before the World Cup, and paid $452,000 after stretching above the CV then. That history takes some heat out of the new number. The council valuation may look ugly, but the longer market story might be less dramatic. Marketing methods for real estate get left for another day, which suits this segment. One property worry at a time.

As heard by us

A clear, practical look at why lower Auckland council valuations can worry homeowners without proving a matching fall in market value.

Auckland's 9% average fall in council valuations gives this conversation a clear way into a familiar homeowner worry: what an official number does, and does not, say about a property's real market value.

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Why you'd press play

You want to know whether a 9% lower Auckland CV really means your property lost 9%.

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