- Hamilton homeowners braced for shocks as council prepares to release the city's new RVs on June 23.
- The last set of RVs was assessed in September 2021, at the height of the housing market in the city.
- Council manager Matthew Bell emphasised the RVs are for rating purposes and may not reflect current house prices.
Real estate experts are warning Hamilton homeowners that their RVs will take a tumble when the city council finally releases the new valuations later this month.
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After Auckland Council revealed rateable values had dropped an average 9% in the city, Hamilton City Council has confirmed its new RVs, also known as CVs, are expected to be released on June 23 following a two-month delay.
The last revaluation for Hamilton was carried out in September 2021, which was the peak of the market, and the new values will reflect the true market conditions in Hamilton as of September 1, 2024.
Hamilton City Council financial support services manager Matthew Bell told OneRoof that he expected the values of most residential properties in the city to fall because the last revaluation occurred during the market highs of 2021.
Harcourts Hamilton owner Campbell Scott said the market had fallen since September 2021, so he expected the new rateable values to reflect that.
The median house price in Hamilton fell 5.5% between September 2021 and September 2024, which suggested RVs could fall by around the same amount, he said.
According to figures from OneRoof and its data partner Valocity, Hamilton's average property value fell by 7.2% between September 2021 and September 2024. Property values in the city have increased by just under 2% since September 2024.
“As an average across the city, prices are still softer now than they were then for the most part. Volumes are just starting to catch up to where they got to in the middle or end of 2021, and price typically follows volume. We’ve seen the volume shifts, we haven’t seen the price shifts yet.”
Scott felt the first-home buyer suburbs, including as Nawton, Fairfield, and Bader, would have been more protected from the drops because of strong demand for these homes, while the RVs in suburbs with the more executive family homes, including Flagstaff and Rototuna North, could take a bigger hit.
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However, he warned homeowners not to obsess over their RV because they were not intended to be reflective of the current market value.
“Sometimes it aligns with market value, and plenty of other times it doesn’t. People should be encouraged to look at it through that lens.”
Lodge managing director Jeremy O’Rourke said there had been a drop in values between September 2021 and September 2024, but also another subtle lift even since the new valuations were done almost a year ago.
O’Rourke said the new RVs were out of date before they were even published and were just based on a snapshot in time.
Lodge managing director Jeremy O'Rourke said the new rateable values are already out of date. Photo / Supplied
The council valuations were for rating purposes only and did not necessarily reflect what a property would sell for today, he said. The best way for a homeowner to get a true idea of their property’s value is to contact a real estate agent to do an appraisal.
“The RVs themselves don’t dictate what a property is going to actually sell for, so if someone gets a big RV next week or next month, it’s not going to all of a sudden have a boost on what their property value is worth – it doesn’t work like that.”
O’Rourke said house values in all suburbs had come back, but some had fallen harder than others.
“There’s no one that’s been completely immune to the market movements , but certainly some suburbs have had a greater fall off than others.”
O’Rourke said terraced houses all over the city had seen some dramatic drops in value because of demand for those property types, so he expected the RVs for these to also fall.
Bell said the revaluations were done for rating purposes only. While it did not affect the overall amount of money the council collected from rates, it might change how much each property paid.
Hamilton Council says the new RVs are to calculate rates and are not a reflection of current house prices. Photo / Getty Images
The new valuation would not have much of an impact on how much rates people would pay because for most Hamilton residents the change to their rates will be close to the average 15.5% rates increase proposed by the council for the 2025/26, he said.
The ratepayers who would see the biggest changes were those with properties who had an above-average value change and would therefore experience higher rate rises, and properties with a below-average value change who would benefit from smaller rates rises.
Bell blamed the two-month delay on its independent valuer Opteon requesting more time to ensure the process was robust. Because of this, the new valuations were not provided to the Office of the Valuer General (OVG) until the end of May and that the auditing process was expected to take three weeks.
The OVG is expected to issue certification of the new values by June 23 and just three days later, on June 26 the council will set rates based on the new values. Delays in receiving the information from the OVG could see the meeting pushed back to June 30.
Bell said the council was working to a tight timeframe and would upload the new rateable values to the council’s website as soon as it received them. The new valuations would also be sent to ratepayers via email and post.
However, the short turnaround time also meant ratepayers would be asked to pay their next rates bill before being given time to get their head around or object to the new valuation.
“For those ratepayers who lodge an objection to their new values, we recommend that rates still be paid during this time.” Bell said ratepayers would be credited if a property’s value is changed following an objection.
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