New Rating Valuations for Palmerston North City

Date: Wednesday 04 November 2009

The Palmerston North City Revaluation has now been completed and owners will be notified of their new Rating Value in the second week of November. The new values have an effective valuation date of 1st September 2009.

Quotable Value Manager, Simon Willocks says the Palmerston North City's 2009 Rating Valuations have, for most properties remained unchanged from the 2006 Capital and Land values. This trend is consistent across the suburbs and other sectors within the City. (see attached table Pdf below)

In the Residential sector, values increased beyond the 2006 levels until the start of 2008, but have eased back over the last 18 months by the same amount and despite a slight rally around the valuation date, the 2009 and 2006 values generally sit at similar levels.

Some properties have been identified for value increases or decreases to reflect particular market pressures.

In particular, section sales in some Kelvin Grove subdivisions have struggled to realise their 2006 rating values. Similarly some high end Hokowhitu Capital and Land values have been reduced to also recognise buyer pressure in these price bands.

The average house price is the same as 2006, averaging $294,000. Similarly the Ownership flats average has remained unchanged at $208,000.

The Commercial and Industrial sectors have remained reasonably static with individual changes rather than city wide movements with stable rentals and yields.

Rural properties have also matched their 2006 values recognising their location to the City, although harder hill country properties have been pulled back to reflect a very difficult market at present.

The lifestyle market has also backed up the trends of the residential market in the City.

The Palmerston North City Council will use the new values as the base for setting rates for the 2010/11 financial year.  Council's Strategy Manager- Finance, Steve Paterson says Council staff will be reviewing the new values over coming weeks and then advising the Council what impacts they might have on rates assessed for individual properties.

"It is important to realise that the changes to values does not increase or decrease the total rates revenue for the Council", says Mr Paterson.   "Instead, rates are spread amongst ratepayers in slightly different proportions than before".

Copies of the valuation roll are available for inspection at the Palmerston North City Council offices.  Owners have until 16 December 2009 to lodge objections to the new values.  More information about how to do this will be provided with the notices of new valuations.