Home affordability produces mixed results nationally

That's the good news for home owners in the latest quarterly report on home affordability from Massey University's Property Foundation.

The bad news is that in eight other regions houses became less affordable so the national measure of home affordability worsened by 4% in the quarter and 11.9% in the year to May.

Only Central Otago-Lakes, New Zealand's least affordable region, showed an improvement on an annual basis.

Overall, an increase in the national median house price outstripped increases in the average weekly wage and mortgage interest rates to make homes less affordable in the quarter.

But fluctuations are emerging between regions. There was a 6.6% improvement in the measure of home affordability in the May quarter in Central Otago-Lakes, while Southland improved 4.8%, Otago 2.2% and Waikato-Bay of Plenty 0.2%.

By comparison, the regions to show an improvement in affordability in the February quarter were Otago (5.6%), Nelson-Marlborough (5.4%), Taranaki (2%) and Wellington (0.4%).

The declines in home affordability in the May quarter were: Taranaki (17.5%), Northland (5.8%), Auckland (5.2%), Canterbury-Westland (4.9%), Wellington (2.8%), Taranaki (2.6%), Manawatu-Wanganui (2.4%), Nelson-Marlborough (2.2%) and Hawke's Bay (0.6%).

The largest decline in home affordability on an annual bases was in Southland (26.8%), followed by Wellington (18.3%) and Manawatu-Wanganui (16.9%).