Pod Insights The Property Academy Podcast The Truth About Auckland Suburbs (Ranked Best to Worst)⎟Ep. 2398 About this episode Which Auckland suburbs are actually worth investing in right now… and which ones should you avoid? In this episode, Ed and Andrew rank 15 Auckland suburbs from best to worst using real data ... and some of the results might surprise (or annoy) you. You’ll learn: The top-tier suburbs (S & A) investors should be looking at right now The common traits of high-performing areas – and why some expensive suburbs rank poorly When a “bad” suburb could still be a great investment with the right propertyThe key takeaway? It’s not about picking the “best” suburb, it’s actually about knowing where to start looking. Great investors don’t chase hype or prestige… they follow the numbers, spot emerging areas, and find the right deal within them. Don't forget to create your free Opes+ account and Wealth Plan here. For more from Opes Partners:Sign up for the weekly Private Property newsletterInstagramTikTok
Transcript 0:08 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome back to the Property Cadbury Podcast. I'm your host, Seb at Night.
0:11 Speaker 01 And I'm Andrew Nichol.
0:12 Speaker 00 And this is a show that helps Kiwis go from zero to five investment property. So you could be financially free and over the next 15 minutes, you're going to learn the Auckland suburbs ranked best to worst for property investment, which Auckland suburbs were looking for properties in right now. And when investing in the worst suburb could still make sense. Now, we are going to rank 15 Auckland suburbs today from best to worst. We're going to put it into a classic YouTube tier list from S tier all the way to F tier.
0:40 Speaker 01 What's S tier? I always forget that.
0:42 Speaker 00 Superior.
0:43 Speaker 01 Superior.
0:43 Speaker 00 Well, it could be supreme. Who knows? But I thought it was superior.
0:46 Speaker 01 So S is the best, A, B, C, D, F.
0:49 Speaker 00 And there's no E. No, E is for Edward, so it must be excellent anyway.
0:53 Speaker 01 Do they actually take that out of you? Just forgotten it?
0:55 Speaker 00 No, often people take, take E out, you know, we don't, we don't need too many tiers.
0:59 Speaker 01 Cats these days.
1:00 Speaker 00 But how are we going to rank suburbs? Well, we're going to need to start by looking at where the location is. We're going to need to look at what the long-term growth has been, how much house prices have gone up, maybe the yield and also house prices, are they really high or low? And throughout the whole episode, we're going to use area analyzer. Remember this is a tool that we've released for you guys where you can check the data on any suburb in the country, over a thousand suburbs in here. And we're going to use it today to pull up the data for all of the suburbs we want to rank. Now, I always get nervous, Andrew, because you always start yelling at me, telling me I'm getting it wrong, but hopefully we're going to be nice today. Right, we're going to start with Mount Wellington. Where are you going to put that?
1:41 Speaker 01 So with Mount Wellington, you've got an average estimated yield of 3.7%, which is higher than kind of the market as a whole. But, you know, I'm not saying that you can go buy any property here and consider it a good investment or in any of these areas. None of these are your sign off to go and buy any property in this area or not buy a property in the area. The average house price is under 900 grand. I've considered that pretty good. The long-term capital growth is 6.4%. The thing to remember about Auckland. Auckland growth rates at the moment, the long term average, as you're talking about roughly 20 years with the data and you've just had the 20% drop there. So you're basically a percent lower than if we hadn't had, you know, a major drop recently. So, you know, that could be over 7% or that would be over 7% had we not had that big drop.
2:26 Speaker 01 So I think that's pretty strong. So I'd probably put this in a category B. You know, you've got Sylvia Park nearby, train station nearby, lots of jobs. You're close to the CBD. I like that area.
2:39 Speaker 00 And I suppose the reason we might not put it higher is because while there are some really good things about it, I actually think there are some better suburbs out there at the moment. Now, what do you think about Drury? Cause this is really far south, right? Like really close to like the Bombay Hills and around about where Pukakoe is. But people have been getting quite excited about Drury because there's talk about there being a lot more development down there. Now, it's quite hard to get like data for there because there's not much going on at the moment. Like all we know is that about 1,600 people live in them and maybe a quarter of them will so rent. So where would you put Drury?
3:15 Speaker 01 So Drury, I mean, I, I often look at these areas and, and think about, okay, well, you know, is this the next Rolleston with all this infrastructure planned? Is that going to bring a whole lot more jobs and opportunities and, and people wanting to live there? Maybe, but at the moment you're basically making a guess. And, you know, whilst it might play out that way, it also might not as well. And, and then you're just left with a paddock and maybe an, an investment property that, you know, no one actually wants to rent. So I'd probably say there might be some opportunities. I'd watch that over the next, you know, 10 years, but I think probably it's a D.
3:51 Speaker 00 Yeah. The other thing is it can be quite hard to get good tenants and property managers down in those like places that are really, really far away from the central city. But it's really a bet on the next kind of 10 to 20 years. I want to talk about Oarkay as well. This is actually where I live in Oarkay.
4:06 Speaker 01 Look at that nice picture of it.
4:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, I know. You've got the boat sheds down there. And if we look, and I'll pull up the data because I did take this into consideration when I decided to buy there. We've got really expensive house prices, average price there is over two million bucks. Average rent there, low, just under nine hundred dollars. Estimated yield of just over two percent. But the long-term capital growth rate has been really, really good. And if you look at where it is, it's really close to the central city. In fact, Oodarka has had one of the better capital growth rates of Auckland suburbs. Which is one of the reasons why I was like, oh, wouldn't mind going in there, especially because it's so close. But what do you think about it as an investment?
4:43 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, because you're paying such high prices to buy there. And look, let's face it, rent has, you know, somewhat of a ceiling. That's what brings down that yield. I think you'd be far better off buying two million dollar properties in one of the other locations. And probably getting, you know, maybe a fifty percent more collective rent. I think that's a D, sorry Ed. I think it's a wonderful place for you to live in, but I don't think it's a rental property.
5:08 Speaker 00 Now, there's something important to mention though, because when we're talking about best and worst suburbs, we're really talking about the average property, what we see as the average. Because I know for a fact, your property team has actually been sniffing around properties in Oodarka at the moment, trying to find land to build some good investment properties. And so a lot of people are saying, well, you've just said it's a D tier, not a great suburb to invest in. And now your property team's sniffing around properties there. So watch what.
5:32 Speaker 01 I know. And then also like, yeah, I'll give you another good example. We said the other day, you know, we wouldn't recommend Wanaka as a general area at the moment for investment. Because on the whole, most of the properties there are so expensive and the yields are so low as a consequence, that it doesn't make sense. Does that mean that every property is bad there? Absolutely not. In fact, at the same time we were saying that on the podcast, I knew the property team were looking at some properties and negotiating some prices for some properties in Wanaka, which look like wonderful investments. So you're just going to be careful when we are talking about things, we are talking about averages. Not every property in an area we recommend is a good investment. Similarly, not every area that we say, no, that's an area that overall, on average, we would.
6:16 Speaker 01 Wouldn't recommend. Doesn't mean everything there is going to be a bad investment.
6:19 Speaker 00 Well, I suppose it's just that we say, where do we think that there are the highest number of opportunities right now? Doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities elsewhere as well. We need to speed this up. What about somewhere like Mount Albert? Where are you going to put Mount Albert?
6:32 Speaker 01 Mount Albert, I really like this area at the moment. There's a lot of new development going on. Affordable land, the government through K O are getting rid of a whole bunch of dirt there at reasonable prices. Developers are able to build there relatively cheaply. Long-term capital growth, six point three percent. Similar to kind of other areas what we've been talking about. Yields are relatively low here. But that's based on the average house price being one point two. I know there's a lot more affordable properties. And your average rent there is probably not a reflection of the average property. I reckon that's probably an A, to be honest.
7:06 Speaker 00 Okay. The other good thing about Mount Albert is it's, it actually is really, really central.
7:11 Speaker 01 So close to town.
7:13 Speaker 00 Which is somewhat surprising. You've got a pretty good school zone there with mags as well. That I think there are some really good opportunities if you can find them in Mount Albert. What about somewhere like Avondale? Avondale's relatively close to Mount Albert. So does that make it a tier as well?
7:29 Speaker 01 So the interesting thing about Avondale is your long-term capital growth is a little bit lower. I mean, it's still six percent. And again, coming off the back of a, a, probably a percent drop off the long-term average. But I probably because of that, I'm just going to pull that down to a B tier.
7:44 Speaker 00 And Andrew, I'll just mention, I had somebody email me the other day. I tried to call them back, actually. They never text me back or call me back. But they're really upset about, I was talking about the worst places to buy a house in New Zealand. And of course, it's all the very lovely picturesque places, right?
8:00 Speaker 01 Which we love to visit, we love to go to.
8:03 Speaker 00 But we don't necessarily invest there. And so we, we look at this as cold, hard-nosed investors, right? Now, that doesn't mean that you're an idiot for buying a house in these areas, especially if you've got to live in it. But people love to know, well, what do you think is a good place? And what do you think is a bad place? And so because you guys keep asking about it, we tell you, even though I then get emails and texts telling me that I'm an idiot. Which is also true. I mean, they're just wonderful judges of characters.
8:26 Speaker 01 About this.
8:27 Speaker 00 Okay, Walkworth. I want to talk to you about Walkworth because this is a place I'll never forget being in the Remuera Tennis Club changing rooms.
8:33 Speaker 01 Oh, you're so bougie, aren't you?
8:35 Speaker 00 No, no, no, no. The Remuera Tennis Club is not. It's not bougie. It's not a bougie place. I loved it, but it's not a bougie place. And I remember hearing people say, Walkworth, Walkworth is the next place to be. Now, remember Walkworth is really far north of Auckland, right? It's probably like an hour drive, but there has been development there and people saying this is the next place to be. What do you think about it?
9:00 Speaker 01 Long-term capital growth, 5.6% again. Maybe this is-
9:03 Speaker 00 Pretty low, eh?
9:04 Speaker 01 Really low. One of these areas where maybe there might be some future growth at a faster rate because of the fact that it's been kind of held back and now there's development going on there. The yield's not bad. The average yield's not bad. The average sale price is not that bad. But again, I kind of think that you're probably hanging your hat on what might happen. I think there's more chance of this taking off than Drury. Well, suddenly there's more certainty around it.
9:31 Speaker 00 There's a lot more development happening in Walkworth right now, right? And in terms of the people living there, about 6,000 rather than, you know, 2,000 in Drury.
9:40 Speaker 01 So it's not a D, but I wouldn't go as high as a B. I think there's a C.
9:44 Speaker 00 I'll, I'll do it because, because I like you. But I think, I'm scathing about Walkworth, eh?
9:49 Speaker 01 Why?
9:49 Speaker 00 I'm like, because people see the supply and then think, wow, there's so many houses being built. Must be a good idea. I'm like, all I see there is, is more and more supply. And the other thing about Walkworth is it is so far north, right?
10:04 Speaker 01 How long does it take to drive there?
10:05 Speaker 00 It'd be like an hour, roughly an hour, depending on your traffic, you know? And so I can see much more reason for investing in like a Pukka Kawi compared to a Walkworth in my mind.
10:15 Speaker 01 I tell you a lot.
10:16 Speaker 00 It might as well be South Wangarang, right?
10:18 Speaker 01 With the petrol prices the way they are, maybe people won't be that excited about it.
10:22 Speaker 00 You know, then you get people moved to Walkworth being like, oh, it'd be lovely. Then they complain about having to drive into the city. What about some good suburbs? What are your top suburbs?
10:30 Speaker 01 Okay, let's talk about some of the S tiers. Actually, now that I, now that I'm re-looking at this, because I know I'm gonna put Only Hunger at S tier. I think that's a great area. I think there's so many opportunities there.
10:42 Speaker 00 Only Hunger used to be quite dodgy, eh? But it's actually getting really nice.
10:46 Speaker 01 It's changed so much in the 20 years that I've been, you know, like, working with Aucklanders and investing there. I actually am gonna move Mount Albert actually to be comparable. I actually think I probably understated the opportunity there, particularly around how close to town it is. Another area that I'd rank as an S tier is an area that I've just settled a property. The whole development rented out within a week. It was a record project for the property management team in terms of renting, and that's New Windsor.
11:12 Speaker 00 Now, where is New Windsor? Because I live in Auckland, but I don't even know where New Windsor is.
11:15 Speaker 01 Uh, so chuck it into your map since you can see it exactly.
11:18 Speaker 00 Oh, so it's quite close to, to Mount Albert and Avondale.
11:22 Speaker 01 And it's kind of, it's, it's a really nice established area. There's some really nice streets there. I think there's some, gonna be some good opportunity there. The prices are a little bit higher on average, but I think again, like, I wouldn't let that suggest that that's the average property. Again, you know, you're not buying the average property there. You're probably buying something a bit more affordable, which will bring up that yield. I think that this is an area where you're gonna see more development with the unitary plan changes. And, and I think you're going to really see an evolving, um...
11:53 Speaker 00 I thought you were gonna speed this up. Honestly, you keep going on.
11:56 Speaker 01 All right. What else? We've got Mano Bridge. Let's put that as an A tier. I mean, great, great growth, great yield, great gentrification. But I'd also probably say at that point, I'd probably put Mount Rosskill in an A tier as well.
12:08 Speaker 00 Mount, Mount Rosskill's relatively close to these areas that you quite like. So you're kind of liking this inner-city-ish.
12:17 Speaker 01 City fringe, like, I mean, you don't wanna go, a city fringe for Auckland, like, you might be 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes away from the CBD, which is close to town from an Aucklander's standpoint. But there are some really good developments going on in these areas. And for convenience, you know, you're close to amenities, you're close to a public transport, close to jobs, like, you know, the hospitals and, and other, you know, hubs. I really like these parts of Auckland.
12:43 Speaker 00 I suppose the other thing is that as Point Shev, and I'll just show you where that is. Point Shev is just on the other side of the motorway to Mount Albert, right?
12:50 Speaker 01 And when I say I like these areas, what I mean by that is... People who are buying a property in the future are probably going to like these areas and so are your tenants and that's what matters to me. I like what's going to make me money.
13:01 Speaker 00 So Mount Albert and some of the suburbs you like are around here, just on the other side of Point Shev. Point Shev is starting to get real expensive now, right? Because it's right next to the bougie suburbs like Westmere, which is like, honestly, you can't buy a three bedroom, one bathroom house in Westmere these days for like less than two million dollars. So Point Shev starts to get more expensive and then we start to see it come around to Avondale and Mount Albert. It's probably not there right now, right? But, but it's about the trend of what we're tending to see in the future, which is when house prices get really expensive in the expensive areas, people start to move out, they start to gentrify, they get a bit nicer. Okay, what about Auckland Central? So this is about, you've been talking about how the central city, oh, they're important to be close to there, but where are you going to put Auckland Central? Surely that'll be
13:46 Speaker 00 in Easther as well.
13:47 Speaker 01 That's an F. That's definitely an F because you've got lots of apartments, you've got lots of competition, you've got high body corporate fees, you might have a lot of leasehold properties. The long-term capital growth is terrible, like 3%. Like that is horrific. Even if you add a percent on, it's only 4%. Average house value, that's relatively low because lots of apartments, but I think if I were going to buy an Auckland Central would be because I'm buying an apartment to live in, there ain't no way I'm investing there.
14:14 Speaker 00 Well, unless you were specifically buying to get really good rental returns and cash flow, right? And you were like, hey, I know that my house value might not go up much at all, right?
14:25 Speaker 01 Actually, that's a fair statement because someone said the other day, someone said the other day, you know, they often criticize the areas around that, you know, just looking for income. Yes, that's true because I am biased because I'm an investor that wants as much wealth as possible.
14:39 Speaker 00 But I think a lot of people do tend to buy because they want the house value to increase, or that's an important consideration. But if we look at since 2018, house prices at Auckland Central have continued to fall, but you've basically got very, very little increase from the COVID boom, but you've still seen the downturn. And so that's just the risk that I think people forget about with apartments and I suppose. Thing that we get our knickers in a twist about is when people try and sell apartments saying, oh, it'll go up like at six percent like everything else, where that's just not true. And so, but if you are searching for income, Auckland Central could be a really good place to look.
15:18 Speaker 01 What else you got on that list for me?
15:20 Speaker 00 You've got four more to go through. We've got Takapuna.
15:23 Speaker 01 A lovely area, high value properties, low yields. Again, this is a place I'd absolutely live, not a place I'd invest, generally speaking. So I put that as a D.
15:33 Speaker 00 Okay, we've got three more.
15:34 Speaker 01 Yep.
15:35 Speaker 00 Tatarangi, which I've got a, I must have it. Um, this is another place where I'm, I'm an Aucklander. You know what? I fairly feel like I can say that as well. I've lived in Auckland for almost 15 years now.
15:46 Speaker 01 It's a 15 year.
15:47 Speaker 00 Well, I first moved there when I was 15 years old, right? I spent a little bit of time in, in Hamilton, little bit of time in Christchurch. But actually, I always thought I was still from Tarunaki until, you know, I thought, oh, I probably am an Aucklander now. Now, Tatarangi is kind of really nice. It, it's in West Auckland, around by the coast. It's kind of one, one road in, one road out. People like living there. Where are you putting it as an investment?
16:12 Speaker 01 Low long-term growth, relatively low yield. Again, it might be a great place to live, but it's a D for an investment for me.
16:19 Speaker 00 And we've got two more. Burke Dale. Burke Dale is in.
16:23 Speaker 01 North Shore.
16:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
16:24 Speaker 01 Burke Dale, I'm all about. A top 10% of suburbs for capital growth, top 25% for yield. Some great development going on there. I think gentrification happening. This is doing all the right things for me. I would absolutely put this as an A tier, or maybe even an S tier.
16:40 Speaker 00 No, you've put too many in S tier. I'm not.
16:41 Speaker 01 Okay, fine, A tier.
16:43 Speaker 00 You would have put everything in S tier.
16:44 Speaker 01 No, I don't, not even.
16:45 Speaker 00 Great location.
16:46 Speaker 01 No, the last one we've got. Last one I'm gonna put, what have we got there?
16:50 Speaker 00 Let me get how it come.
16:51 Speaker 01 So average house price relatively high, long-term growth again, going below that six percent. Probably would have said B if the growth was a bit high. So I'm gonna put it as C.
17:00 Speaker 00 Okay, so there are our rankings. You're saying an S tier is Orangang, Mount Albert, New Windsor, A tier, Mangere Bridge, Mount Rosskill and Burke Dale, but you wouldn't touch Auckland Central?
17:12 Speaker 01 Absolutely not. And look again, I don't want you to take this list and say, right, anything that I buy in Only Hunger or Mount Albert or New Windsor, that's a no brainer investment. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that.
17:25 Speaker 00 This is where there could be opportunities.
17:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, more opportunities than Auckland Central and vice versa. Auckland Central doesn't mean that if you own something there, you're a fool. It just probably means it's either right for you, or maybe there are better opportunities elsewhere.
17:38 Speaker 00 And if you want help looking for properties in these areas, then you might like to work with a financial advisor, or you might like to book a meeting with us and tell us we're wrong. So all you have to do is go to the Opes Partners website, click the big orange button to book your free session. You'll be able to choose your financial advisor and choose a time that suits you, because those are some of the areas where our team at Opus Property are looking for properties right now. And over the last 15 minutes, you've learnt the Auckland suburbs ranked best to worst for investment, which Auckland suburbs we're looking for properties in right now, and when investing in the worst suburb could still make sense. Right, let's wrap it up there, but please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. Really does help us get the message out to more people.
18:23 Speaker 00 Thanks for listening to the Property Academy Podcast. I'm your host David Knight.
18:26 Speaker 01 And I'm Janek. We're going to be back here tomorrow with even more daily strategies,
18:29 Speaker 00 tactics and insights to help you get the most out of the new property market. Until next time.
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