- Christchurch homeowners received new RVs with an average increase of 1.39%, much lower than previous years.
- Birdlings Flat saw the highest RV increase at 26.5%, while some suburbs experienced declines.
- Experts advise against relying solely on RVs for property value, suggesting recent sales as a better guide.
Christchurch homeowners have been issued new RVs for their properties, but the change between council valuations this time around is more subdued.
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OneRoof and its data partner found that the average lift in RV for the city between 2022 and 2025 was 1.39% - well below the 51% leap seen between 2019 and 2022.
During the Covid boom, every Christchurch suburb enjoyed a significant lift in its median RV, but only 78 suburbs saw an increase in their median RV, with the remaining 42 suburbs seeing no change or experiencing a drop in value.
According to analysis from OneRoof’s data partner Valocity, the biggest increase was in the city’s cheapest suburb, Birdlings Flat, a tiny settlement about 45 minutes south of the central city. Its median RV rose by 26.5% ($65,000) to $310,000.
The next biggest RV jumps were in Ferrymead, a sought-after suburb in southeast Christchurch (up 16.4% to $990,000); Duvauchelle, a small settlement at the head of Akaroa Harbour (up 10.6% to $830,000); Cracroft, in southwest Christchurch (up 7.8% to $1.24m); and Strowan, in the inner city (up 7.4% to $1.15m).
The biggest dollar increases were Ferrymead (+$140,000), Scarborough (+$115,000 to $1.775m), and Prebbleton (+$100,000 to $2.02m).
The suburbs that suffered the biggest RV falls were in small settlements on the outskirts of the city. The median RV in Little Akaloa and Gebbies Valley, in Banks Peninsula, fell by over 9% to $685,000 and $960,000 respectively, while the median RV in McLeans Island, to the north of the city, dropped by 8.9% to $1.57m.
Richmond in the inner city was the biggest suburb to fall, with its RV down by 6.1% to $530,000.
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Prebbleton, a small town 11km southwest of Christchurch, was the only suburb to register a median RV of more than $2m. The suburb with the next highest RV was Lansdowne, another small settlement on the southern fringes of Christchurch. The eight houses there have a median rateable value of $1.96m.
Scarborough and Kennedys Bush, two desirable Christchurch city suburbs, had median RVs of just over $1.7m.
The analysis also identified five homes with RVs over $9m, including one on Fendalton Road, in Fendalton, with an RV of $11.6m.
A Stuff media report from 2020 covering the Z-shaped home’s construction said it was designed by Auckland architects RTA Studio, would be around five times the size of the average Christchurch home and would cost $9.5m.
Other Christchurch homes with high RVs include the Master Builders Canterbury Supreme House of the Year for 2022, and the Fendalton mansion that broke the city's house price record last year.
Houses in Kennedys Bush. The suburb’s median RV has grown by 3% to $1.7m. Photo / Supplied
Brenchley, on Saint Barnabas Lane, in Fendalton, is the most expensive property to ever sell in Christchurch. It has a new RV of just under $10m. Photo / Supplied
While buyers and sellers often look to rateable values for an indication of what a property might be worth, many agents say people should not rely on RVs as they are purely for councils to work out the rates.
Harcourts Gold agent Cameron Bailey, who lists several top-end homes in the city, including one currently being sold by Richie and Gemma McCaw, said some properties sold for substantially more than the RV and others sold for much less.
While some buyers used RVs as a starting point, “real buyers are more interested in recent sales and comparisons rather than an algorithm worked out for rateable purposes”.
Bailey pointed to a recent sale on Allister Avenue that was over $1m above its RV to highlight the gap between council valuations and market value.
He also had a warning to vendors: “I think one of the most dangerous things is people who sell their own properties around RV. A lot of people presume they can sell their own home, and if they get RV.”
Sellers taking that approach could potentially miss out on $1m without even realising, he said. “Some people out there are thinking they can do it themselves and save some money on the commission [to the agent], and they use the RV as a guideline. They could potentially under-sell their property.”
Bailey said the suburbs that had enjoyed the biggest jumps in RVs were growth areas. Strowan, for example, was close to St Andrew’s College, which drew families, and Ferrymead was surrounded by some great suburbs.
Harcourts Gold agent Cameron Bailey worries that sellers who are hooked on RVs could be missing out. Photo / George Heard
Bailey had sold houses in Duvauchelle over the last few years, including one for $3m, and he said there had been a lot of new baches built there.
Cracroft was another up-and-coming area surrounded by other good areas.
The areas that had dropped the most tended to be smaller outlying areas, and while Bailey had not been in the Fendalton house with the $11.6m RV, he thought Christchurch would have a lot of properties worth more than that if they were on the market.
Rachel Dovey, general manager for Bayleys Canterbury, agreed that RVs were a measure of land and value for rateable purposes, but said a lot of online platforms did factor them into their price estimation guides.
“I think people, they strongly value that number as a guide to worth, but we’ve also got to remember what we pay – it’s linked to what we pay in terms of rates and the cost of living.”
A better way of establishing potential market value was to use the comparative market analysis that agents were required to carry out when signing agreements with vendors to sell a property.
“We have to show evidence of the last three months, so I take a street, and I look at what’s sold. We are using that day-to-day evidence; we are not searching people’s RVs. We are looking at, ‘that was sold last week for that’ and ‘that was sold last week for that’.”
A modern home on Allister Avenue, in Merivale, recently sold for $3.5m - over $1m above its RV at the time. Photo / Supplied
Gill Knight, director of Whittle Knight Real Estate, said RVs were more of a niggle than a help when it came to people’s perception of value.
She felt that the previous RVs had been “overcooked” from when the market was hot, and were out of kilter when the market cooled.
A Quotable Value press release said the new valuations had been prepared for 185,714 properties on behalf of Christchurch City Council and showed the city’s total RV was at $187,184,401,593, with the land value of those properties at $94,786,698,855.
The release stated the rating valuations were usually carried out on all New Zealand properties every three years to help local councils set rates for the following three-year period.
They reflected the likely selling price of a property (excluding chattels) at the effective revaluation date, which for Christchurch City was August 1, 2025.
On average, the value of residential housing in Christchurch City had increased 1.87% since the previous effective revaluation date of August 1, 2022, and the average home value was now $861,197, while the corresponding average land value had increased 5.75% to $475,384.
Rating valuations were a snapshot of the market at a point in time, said QV senior consultant and registered valuer Emma Tweed, who co-led the Christchurch City revaluation.
“Leading up to the previous rating valuations, which were set in August 2022, the Christchurch property market had experienced considerable post-pandemic growth.
“This time around, the market has shown relative stability, with most residential properties seeing only modest growth or decline in comparison to the previous revaluation cycle.
“Some sectors of the market are performing better than others, with dwellings on large sites generally transacting well, while market demand tends to have decreased for two-bedroom townhouses, without garaging or parking.”
Kelvin Davidson, chief economist for Cotality, said the primary purpose of RVs was to allocate rates across a district.
They were out of date almost immediately because of the lag time between the date they were taken and the date they were released months later.
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