Our take on the latest Real estate statistics (Thu 14 Feb 2019)
New Zealand house sales fell 2.5%pa
Auckland and Canterbury both saw price drops
Median days to sell hits a four-year high
The key numbers...
- The housing market continues to moderate, with sales remaining in decline, prices in two of the three largest cities falling, and it taking longer to sell a house. Regional New Zealand and Auckland continue to diverge.
- Vendors remain be unwilling to lower their prices, with longer times to sell houses and lower stock volumes reported by realestate.co.nz, indicating a disconnect between buyers and sellers.
- We continue to expect house prices to fall nationally over the next year, as greater supply in the regions pushes prices down, and sellers revaluate their asking prices in an attempt to achieve a sale.
REINZ House Price Index
3 month annual % changes
...and our reaction
- A large plunge in house sales in December has been followed by a less extreme drop in January, with total sales down by 2.5%pa. January is usually a more subdued month, but the drop reinforces last month’s poor result.
- The two-track market continues, with Auckland and Canterbury seeing price drops of 2.1%pa and 0.5%pa respectively. New Zealand prices excluding Auckland rose 8.1%pa, highlighting faster price growth across regional New Zealand.
- Houses are taking longer to sell, with a median of 48 days in January across the country. After seasonal adjustment, this is the highest median number of days since August 2014.
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