The average value of New Zealand homes continued to decline in most places July, according to the latest figures from Quotable Value (QV).
The average value of New Zealand homes was $888,999 at the end of July. That's down $2586 from $891,585 at the end of June, according to the QV House Price Index (HPI).
Most major urban centres showed declines in their average dwelling values in July, with the biggest decline occurring in Nelson City which was down $11,228 for the month, followed by Whangarei -$9730 and Hastings -$5783.
Overall there were 11 centres where average values declined in July and five where they increased.
The biggest increase in value was in Invercargill where the average value was up $5513 in July, followed by Queenstown-Lakes +$4134. (See the table below for the full district movements).
However while average dwelling values are continuing to decline, the rate at which they are falling is slowing.
According to the HPI, the national average value declined by 1.5% over the three months to the end of July, down from -1.8% over the three months to end of June, -3.5% for the three months to the end of May, and -3.4% for the three months to the end of April.
Over the 12 months to the end of July the national average dwelling value declined by 10.2%.
Quotable Value Operations Manager James Wilson said it wouldn't be unusual to see home values continue to yo-yo across the motu for the foreseeable future, largely as a result of reduced sales activity.
"Though low sales volumes continue to impact the monthly value change results significantly, causing some short term spikes in average home value levels, the longer term trend is pretty clearly a residential property market that is bottoming out after some very significant home value reductions over the last 18 months or so," Wilson said.
"But it's still early days and were unlikely to see the market reach a consistent bottom overnight.
"Instead, we're likely to see significant variations in performance in sub-markets, across the country, as we see demand return in certain areas and for certain property types at different times.
"Meanwhile, that heightened level of volatility is set to continue until sales volumes increase further," Wilson said.
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96 Comments
Same old story - the data show values continuing to fall, even if currently at a slower rate (though -1.5% for a quarter is 6% annualised, not small), but the “experts” seize on this as green shoots…. Still falling at an Irish rate of knots
I wonder if we'll get an Irish recovery; houses back to being more expensive, but no one wanting to build new ones, no properties to rent, and no one able to afford the ones that already exist.
We're tinkering with the market along the same lines, so the odds are looking pretty sweet.
There are certainly similarities post-crash. Ireland had an outflow of people, disproportionately those in construction sector. When the economy turned around (mainly due to incoming FDI, mostly from US) and flow of people turned strongly positive, there was nobody to build new housing. It’s an issue still being dealt with more than 10 years after recovery commenced.
2 friends have missed out on 4 properties over the last 2 weeks in multi offer situations, one went 200k over where most of the offers were (and where they thought the price would be). Similarly a conveyancing lawyer I know says things are definitely ramping up. Interesting times.
I bet your two friends are much more relaxed this morning than 4 other people!
Obviously a cash buyer, by the sounds of things.
Must have been a good quality home in a decent location. To try and lump every single house in the same boat now would be wrong. Good quality builds in elevated positions are now going to command top dollar. Up until now people really had not given location a thought, things have changed fast with climate change.
That’s the thing Zwifter, the second one was very ordinary and needed a lot of work in a non fantastic location (back end of browns bay)- went for 1.5 when most people weee around 1.3
No one is going to want to believe that, I called the bottom a month ago and prices are now rising. Look at Sydney, +5.5% for the quarter.
What's the address ? I used to live there in the 1970's.
"Up until now people really had not given location a thought"
What the actual f****?!?!!?!!
Sure mate a whole load of people have been flooded out multiple times in recent months, I guess they put a lot of thought into the location of their house before they bought it. What will happen now is a whole lot more homework other than a potential leaky home, its now a potential flooded home as well. Anything remotely on a potential flood plain will become your local park and not suitable to build on.
I went and chatted to the Bank, Bank will only lend so much after getting stress tested based on our combined salary. It looks as if its 5 times income. Not sure about other people but presume it will be the same, how will prices increase if banks stick to their guns and lend within peoples means.
Wonder at the peak of the market when houses and prices were going nuts, with really low interest rates, while people borrowing at full capacity. Now with rates at much higher levels and inflation at ultra highs and a lot of those people highly leveraged, I think your right interesting times.
5 times pre-tax income as total loan amount? That's still a huge loan
One key measure introduced in Ireland was Loan to Income (DTI) limits. Current set at 4.0 for FHB and 3.5 for everyone else. We would do well to follow this measure, in order to keep housing affordable and aligned to actual income. So when economic recovery started it wasn’t just p*sped away on the same old houses….
And if you think these ratios are low it just highlights how we’ve come to see outrageously expensive property as normal…that needs to change. https://www.centralbank.ie/financial-system/financial-stability/macro-p…€400%2C000.
We're tinkering with the market along the same lines, so the odds are looking pretty sweet
Yeah right. We're exactly like the Irish minus all the high-paid manufacturing and knowledge jobs.
The Irish recovery began in 2014 heavily fuelled by their booming "multinational" sector, all thanks to the Double Irish tax scheme.
The influx of US capital has brought hundreds of thousands of knowledge workers into the country and pushed up demand for real estate.
By 2018, the OECD estimated that foreign multinationals provide 80% of domestic value-add and 47% of employment in Irish Manufacturing, and 40% of domestic value-add and 28% of employment in Irish Services. In addition, the OECD estimate that foreign multinationals employ one quarter of the Irish private sector workforce
Ireland's GDP per capita is now roughly double ours - I'm not sure we can easily compare ourselves to them, despite the superficial similarities.
In fact, given our divergence maybe we should be stealing more policies from them.
Are some people "wondering" about an Irish type recovery or are they just dreaming of one? Perhaps dreaming is best left to the leveraged.
Keep it real. Homes are for living in not speculating on.
the key difference between Ireland and New Zealand, besides it's two countries, is that back then the price-to-income ratio was much worse for Ireland, and what's made it worse for Ireland was a massive population loss after the FGC.
in short, I don't think New Zealand will repeat Ireland in terms of house prices.
Your statement doesn't ring true. Or are you thinking of Dublin?
Ireland price to income ratio peaked at 5.5 in 2007/08.
NZ peaked at 8.9 in 2022. NZ currently sits at 7.4.
Auckland is 8.4 currently.
Rating Median Multiple
Severely unaffordable 5.1 & over
Seriously unaffordable 4.1 - 5.0
Moderately unaffordable 3.1 - 4.0
Affordable 3.0 or less
here is my source regarding the house/income ratio:
https://www.ft.com/content/096ea2fe-ecde-41bb-aab7-0fb954be3ca3
Currently in Dublin.
Spoke to a Kiwi who has been living in Ireland and lived through the GFC here. Interesting hearing about GFC in Ireland firsthand.
Banks were lending at LVR'S of 120%.
During the GFC, banks were more willing to foreclose on non owner occupied borrowers in default, than owner occupiers. Lenders tried to work with owner occupiers in default.
They bought a house in 2013 and house prices have doubled since he bought.
A documentary on the Irish property bubble, reported that banks were lending at debt to income of up to 8x for some borrowers.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ireland-banks-idUSKCN1IZ06U
Walking around Dublin, and seeing a number of vacancies in retail space, however don't have any reference to compare on whether current levels are high, low or average.
Having said that, saw one hotel offered for sale by receivers - something that you don't see during an economic boom.
Inflation is currently at 6.1%, having peaked at 9.0%.
The current lowest variable mortgage rate available (July 2023) for first-time buyers who have only a 10% deposit is from Haven (or AIB) at – 3.5 % .
The lowest fixed rate for a 90% LTV is a 4-year fixed rate of 3.65% (If the house has a BER better than C1) at BOI . Avant Money has a 3 year fixed rate of 3.8%.
Also interestingly, the house price index in Ireland is at record highs, only in recent years surpassing house price index levels reached just before the GFC.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QIEN628BIS
Demographia reports that in 3Q2021, the house price to income in Dublin was 5.7x compared to peak of 6.0x at peak in 3Q2005
Central Bank of Ireland lending DTI limit is 3.5, or 4.0 for FHB
https://www.centralbank.ie/financial-system/financial-stability/macro-p…€400%2C000.
Yes as you say, 6% is pretty much what Ireland fell by in their first year of price falls.
Daniel Be, I see your obsession for referencing Ireland hasn’t diminished…
I see your obsession with me hasn't diminished.
No no it can't be so .
Tony A says "we've turned a corner"
One Roof says "we're on the up"
Barfoots says we've " found a new plateau" (beneath the last plateau but above the gully)
REINZ say "we've reached the bottom."
RBNZ say "it's all overheated"!
Hipkins says " what does he say"?
Hopkins says " the market has bottomed out "
Bank$ say " we are seeing a up swing"
Economists tell us " it's all up from here"
And guess what....
They are all wrong again. The level of " knee jerk" reaction from so Called professionals really show their inability to let the "true Average" playout.
Stop spruiking on data spikes!
expert = ex ( an unknown) . spert ( a drip under pressure)
I’ve noticed a new one…”just one more rise”
Auckland Hamilton, up, Invercargill leading the way
This is the result of the spruikers spreading rumors of interest rates starting to fall.. qv data is lagged.. over the last month interest rates have started to rise and test rates increased to 9%.. the outcome of this will show up over the next couple of months
I agree, my comment was sarcasm, obviously invercargill does not shine a light for the way forward. And pretty soon the dairy downturn will hit the southern city like a freight train
Cannot be Flying Pigs, the DGMs state that the main centres lead and the regions then follow.
Banks are still hiking rates, inflation is still way above target, cost of living is ridiculous and if you believe the headlines everyday people are literally piling back into the housing market? The pro property preachers have really ramped things up trying to push the FOMO narrative of late.
Agreed. Are we seeing the classic bubble bull trap that happens before capitulation and return to mean...?
Greed is good, till it isn't.
Greed is EVIL.. at the end, Greed leads those that indulge in it to get burnt..
Dead cat bounce if ever I saw one!
Don’t forget QV is old news, it has about 3 months lag in it (QV HPI is based on settlements not price at the time of agreement as the REINZ index is), so this is just what we were all talking about a few months ago as “ green shoots”. More updated data has since been presented, the most worrying is the latest Barfoot and Thompson monthly figures, they looked very grim for Auckland in July. We need to wait a few days for the REINZ HPI if we are hoping to monitor the market…… it’s the most up to date data that is complete (across the country) and also corrects for house type/size.
We can all see the storm coming.inflation is not going back to 2% for a long time and rates will stay at this level or higher for a long time we have already seen 20% decline the next leg down could be far worse,
I am not seeing that unfortunately. I think it all hinges on jobs- if we see lots of layoffs things could turn ugly, but at the moment I am just seeing more heat coming into the market which is slightly crazy considering interest rates etc
*If* we keep seeing strong, and quite widespread, wage growth over the next year or so then that will definitely support stabilisation of the market and even possibly a small lift. Keeping in mind that much of the wage rises will only compensate for the increased cost of living.
Nonsense. If we keep seeing strong wage growth inflation won’t come down and RBNZ will be forced to continue raising OCR until it breaks inflation, driving house prices far lower in the process
It seems every day now there is another business being put into liquidation. Restaurants, pubs, retail stores, breweries ... the Govt cant underwrite them all like they are doing with the housing developers.
why not down to 2%, Spain has done it
"Spain capped energy prices by more than the UK, lowered the cost of public transport, taxed excess profits and put in place limits on how much landlords can raise rents."
Are we doing any of this?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/03/spain-inflation-l…
Nothing surprising. Will stabilise after elections Feb onwards. The DGMs and anti investors will have nothing to moan about from then for another cycle.
What! The one thing you can count on. Even more than and death and taxes, is the moaning. Especially within the comment section here.
Plenty of fodder for them over the past year! “This time it’s different”
People who got the million dollar mortgage so they could buy 3 bedroom box on small section in Auckland are now paying 1500 per week rather than 900 also inflation has eaten into budgets now NZD is worth 15% less inflation and rates will not be going down for a long time. The only good news is younger generations might be able to afford a home after crash has finished maybe around 2026 look again.
I think the Darwin's theory will work out soon in this country. People who are still buying up large do not understand what is coming their way.
Guys, we are a very small county like the pacific Islands at the bum end of the world. We have a small population and no real industry except we try to sell milk to some rich people who may or may not buy in the future.
And then we pump up our real estate by buying from each other at inflated prices in the hope that it will go up more. In the process we drown ourselves on debt and send profits to the overseas owners of banks. We have not learned from what has happened to other small pacific economies.
God save NZ
It's really simple (approx figures of course).
We haven't been earning enough.
Over the last decade global bankers have loaned us $800k on a house worth $200k.
$600k to keep us going based on nothing.
Now we must pay.
Get it spruikers?
Couldn’t agree more…it’s really that simple and yet people will be shocked as it progresses. We’ve had such a sense of entitlement for so long the new reality is possibly going to hurt more than we imagine at this point. Can only see NACT making it worse through calls for foreign investment. As kiwis we need to harden up and realise our position in the world no longer supports the lifestyle we got accustomed to.
I think everyone will realise it when NZ turns into Aotearoa for real, another poor pacific island nation where all the people who aspire to a nice lifestyle have packed up and decamped to Australia or Singapore. Perhaps we should be growing coconut trees instead of pine.
Nah, we're a tiny broken America, rather than a large Fiji. We want to be Norwegian but live like Mexico, but in the shadow of Straya.
We are a discombobulated melting pot of races, minorities, and social do gooders all wanting a say in a system that can't say No! Anymore.
If you're old white hetro and retired you're a perverted, booming, weirdo.
Funny thing is every white Gen XYZr green wokester has one or two of these weirdos.
The lines of sanity are just too blurred.
We haven't been earning enough.
Over the last decade global bankers have loaned us $800k on a house worth $200k.
Correct. This is the crux of the problem and the ruling elite won't address it nor will the sheeple believe it, despite the math being so simple: total global debt / global GDP.
Assuming long-term debt servicing at 3%, the economy must be growing at 12% p.a. to keep an even keel.
Disagree. We have heaps going for us including world leading software development, agri innovation, solid financial services rating etc etc .. our issue is poor leadership, and low productivity allowing the ‘bottom tier’ to not aspire to anything other than an ever increasing welfare gimme. Agree about real estate. Need a cap gains tax on anything other than family home (bach’s are rarely sold so include it), a stamp duty on a second home and to change investor financing rules to make it harder to use the banks money rather than equity, also more education on other investment vehicles. I think it’s great if hard working folk want an investment property but it needs to be treated like other asset classes, stacked the wrong way presently
World leading software development…agri innovation. Sure there’s a few bright lights here and there but overall we don’t rate that highly. Talent is increasingly being driven away which may come down to the poor leadership you mention.
World leading is clearly an exaggeration. Sure, we have some heavy-lifters in this space, but NZ is still a net importer of software services (software and computer service imports are twice the value of similar exports) - New Zealand Trade Dashboard (shinyapps.io).
yeah - software devs and founders DO NOT want to park their businesses in NZ... we are too far away and arent competitive in any way with the rest of the world.
Our house prices are rising because we are importing tens of thousands of low skilled workers who are renting in groups.... thus they can afford higher rents - the issue is they dont contribute enough for our public serv ces and infrastructure to scale up to support them. This will lead yto us being even less attractive place to live for the people we need (teachers, doctors, police, software devs...)
To keep our economy booming we just let in more low skilled immigrants.. genius
I agree. I often hear about Key and Clark's attempts at building a knowledge economy here in NZ.
The plan was set to fail from day one because we neither have the homegrown skills nor the business capital markets to support such sectors. You can't possibly expect foreigners to bring everything from the skills to capital to IP/knowhow, while we can't even offer them decent infrastructure to support those operations.
"tax on anything other than family home"
Here's the problem with that. ANY exemption to ANY rule will be exploited. That's why, sensibly, we haven't (until now?) had exclusions to GST.
If property priced don't move, or fall, the CGT on the family home = is $zero. And that, as much as anything, cutting the sacrosanct Family Home off at the knees would stabilise the market.
(NB: Let's remember that the Family Home is just the resident family 'renting' the house from themselves. There's a capital alternative application amount that would be taxed if it wasn't tied up in that house)
Yep..exempt the family home and ma and pa kettle will build a bigger and bigger home to get those tax free home gains.
Less tax is the solution.
Less avoidance is required
We have heaps going for us including world leading software development, agri innovation, solid financial services rating etc etc
Maybe, but nz capital is tied up in houses. When these businesses need investment we say byebye, and offshore they go.
We have heaps going for us including world leading software development, agri innovation, solid financial services rating etc etc
Who told you this nonsense? It's a feeble excuse for the bubble. Most software development happens elsewhere and our agricultural innovation is for our own environ.
And BTW, Moodys' ratings are meaningless.
not true JC- I’ve been involved in the sector for 20 years and whilst I hate the saying we do ‘punch well above our weight’ in this area - yes people exit to offshore entities but there’s nothing wrong with that as it means we’re doing something right
not true JC- I’ve been involved in the sector for 20 years and whilst I hate the saying we do ‘punch well above our weight’ in this area - yes people exit to offshore entities but there’s nothing wrong with that as it means we’re doing something right
OK. I'll believe you. What is the NZ equivalent to Cargill?
We might not have anything on the scale of Cargill, but my company is a high tech exporter that builds our products in NZ and exports many tens of millions of dollars of goods and services to the US. In fact Cargill is one of our bigger customers.
I think we are in for a long period of stagnation, perhaps 18 months or 2 years. In that period there will be data that shows occasional glimmers of optimism for those who like the idea of property becoming more expensive. I see a change in government with their incoming legislation as being enough to change sentiment in favour of people entering the market. That will be insufficient without market fundamentals (OCR) to support lending. So a lot of ebb and flow to hang an argument on but overall a stalemate in forces for the foreseeable.
If you are a boomer you will know this market is nothing new. If you want to get a house buy soon or you will regret it in a few years time.
if you are a boomer you should think more about your coffin than another house
Nice. My coffin was bought and paid for long ago. Paid for with the profits I made on houses I purchased when people like you said I shouldn't.
I'm a boomer and I've just spent $1.225m buying land on the outskirts of Auckland. I've owned lots of properties and I've never lost money yet. Buy at the point of greatest pessimism and that's very close. A National Government will turn things around.
We know, it's next to a floodplain by the development that got knocked back by council.
Temporarily....the Fletchers Consortium won't roll over.
You are wasting your time mate, Fletchers do not control the weather. If its a floodplain its a floodplain and even if you build houses nobody in their right mind will buy one.
What happens when it rains in Riverhead.
https://www.tiktok.com/@twentyfour_13/video/7233166816703565057
Nothing that I know of, but weather and soil 'expert' Zwifter says it's a floodplain, which is all BS because there's loads of houses already there.
No. Don't listen to this people. You'll regret it.
Central and Local government have finally figured out that higher density dwellings are the answer to many pressing problems. Not just house / dwelling prices but also reducing living costs and addressing environmental issues.
The days of relying on Councils and Territorial authorities to limit both the land and the density of dwellings built upon are gone. I.e. the scarcity factor can't be relied upon anymore to drive up dwelling prices.
Sure ... Buy the land (600 sqm+ and flat as you can get and well connected to utilities and not subject to coastal erosion or flooding and walkable to shopping and transport) if it's already zoned for higher intensity - but the house? Nope.
Somewhat unrelated but the image shows the problem with our overdesigned roads. It's more that twice as wide as it need to be. Everytime it gets maintained we pay more than double what we need to. This is replicated all over the country
Good point, looks like a bloody highway!!!
Except a lot of new houses are built with limited or no garaging. So the road is the de-facto garage for half the neighbourhood.
Easily solved by building higher densities around transport hubs (with supermarkets) so people rent cars when they need them rather than waste their money owning them.
Novel concept? Actually no. It's like this worldwide in most big and medium cities outside of 'Merica (and to be fair, many 'Merican cities, e.g. NY, actually do this). I worked in both London and NY and never owned a car, and took my company car allowance as cash. When we needed one - we hired - usually at or near the destination. Far, far, far cheaper than owning one! Doesn't work for everyone (e.g. tradies) but it works for the majority.
..and for the small price of registration that car can occupy its own space on a road 24/7, 365 days of the year.
This has to be the cheapest and most heavily subsidised occupation of land space in NZ.
But no one thinks of it like that....
.
Has anyone crunched the long term numbers were house prices to fall to "affordable" levels ...
Just think about how much more money we'd all have not shoveling huge sums into mortgage interest payments over 20-30 years. My back-of-an-envelope spreadsheet suggests NZ Inc. would be H.U.G.E.L.Y better off. I really, really enormously better off. Staggeringly so.
And to do this? Not much is actually required.
We just need Councils and Territory Authorities to keep going down the higher density route and allowing far, far better use of the land cities and town already consume. Alas - NIMBYism still wants to screw our collective economic revival.
So folks - in all elections - central and local body - please only vote for leaders that 100% support higher densities.
Edited: And a land tax would help enormously too by getting people to focus on the real economic value of their land and the opportunity cost of holding land for their own selfish reasons.
A NatAct government - likely - will pull back on density, and open up greenfield development.
Most people don't want to be squashed into high density boxes, most want to own their own piece of dirt, free from close neighbours where they can have a a few trees, maybe a garden and a place to park their car. Many of the high-density boxes being built are destined to become slums.
Wrong wingman. You are projecting what you want on to others.
If you want to attract international talent you need to provide options. Many are used to living in high density cities and towns and absolutely love the vitality it provides. Just look at the Spanish football team fleeing Palmerston North recently because it was so f***ing boring.
If you think loads of high rises and boxes aren't boring you've got it wrong. Who wants to live in some of the crap being built around Auckland like at Westgate? No Parking, one-way roads because there's no parking, jammed up against neighbours, you've got that wrong buddy.
If only they would keep falling to the point where the median price/median income was around 5, but sadly, it won't happen. The banks are too deeply immersed in the property market for that to be allowed to happen, so I expect my grandchildren to leave, perhaps back to Scotland where I came from.
Well I can almost guarantee they will not be going back to Scotland. The UK is experiencing some 4000 illegal immigrants a month already so they are facing some serious problems even in the short term. There is no socially acceptable method of stopping them. I can suggest a solution but it will probably get deleted.
Oh my God, if that keeps up for 15 years it will add 1% to the population! Meanwhile, NZ is routinely importing 1-2% of our population every year.
Or is the difference that they are illegal? We want the go-getters who can apply for a job and get on a plane, not the freeloaders who walk half way across a continent, use their wits to escape detection and find their way across a cold, busy shipping channel.
Refugees seeking safe asylum from their war torn countries, walking past various other safe countries compatible with their own religious ideologies to make their way into The UK. Asylum seeking off a travel brochure.
4000 a month is just those coming across the channel on boats, that they KNOW about. Probably 10 times that smuggled in through other means. Immigration in the UK is over 1.2 MILLION people each year. UK population is 67 million, but estimates put the ACTUAL population in the 85 million region, based on analysis of wastewater and studies into how much food the supermarket industry is importing/selling there.
1.2m for the UK is 1.8% of their population. Or only 1.4% if the population is 85m. All those extra people are working and paying tax.
90k is 1.8% of NZ's population.
Maybe they could train in nursing? Earning $160,000pa, and if married to another nurse total income $320,000pa, and with a DTI of 5, they could afford a debt of $1.6million!
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