Our take on the latest Real estate statistics (Tue 14 Mar 2023)
House prices down 0.9% in February 2023 (seasonally adjusted)
Median days to sell a house rises to 60, the longest since early 2009
House sales down 31%pa
The key numbers...
- House prices fell a further 0.9% in February 2023, leaving prices 16% below the November 2021 peak (both figures seasonally adjusted). Auckland house prices are now sitting nearly 22% below peak levels.
- The time to sell a house has sharply increased, with the median sales time in February sitting at 60 days. That length of time is the longest since the 63 days recorded in February 2009, and partially reflects large increases in sales times in areas hit by Cyclone Gabrielle.
- In Northland, sales times rose to 85 days (from 65 in February 2019, pre-pandemic), and Hawke’s Bay sales times rose to 68 days (from 34 in February 2019).
- Sales volumes fell again in February, and are now down 31% from February 2022. Stripping out seasonal effects, sales volumes in February 2023 were the seventh lowest on record.
- However, house sales weakness wasn’t confined to areas hit by the cyclone, with the entire Lower North Island and parts of the South Island all having among their ten worst sales months (seasonally adjusted).
Taking longer to sell
Median number of days to sell, seasonally adjusted
...and our reaction
- The housing market continues to deteriorate at a steady pace, with house price falls averaging 1.1% a month over the last year and a bit.
- Cyclone Gabrielle has had some influence on the market, with the disruptions causing purchasing timeframes to increase. Days taken to sell a house rose nearly 13% (seasonally adjusted) in February, a similar jump (albeit of a smaller magnitude) occurred during Level 4 lockdown periods. Sales volumes don’t seem to have been shifted as materially by the cyclone, aside from in Hawke’s Bay.
- If anything, the effects of the cyclone on the housing market have exacerbated the trends already apparent across sales and sales times. Sales volumes remain weak, at less than half the peak sales volumes seen over 2020 and 2021. Sales timeframes, even before the cyclone, had blown out by 69% compared to the fastest sales timeframes seen at the start of 2021.
- There’s continued caution across the property market, with house prices still in decline, and worries about even higher interest rates, for even longer, will keep downward pressure on the market for the rest of 2023.
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