A total of 5,766 houses changed hands across the country during May, ahead of both April this year and May 2010, with the national median house price down NZ$10,000 month-on-month to NZ$350,000, the Real Estate Institution of New Zealand (REINZ) says.
The national median number of days to sell widened to 45 in May from 43 in both April this year and May last year with signs of a shortage of listings emerging, REINZ says.
The number of houses unconditionally sold in May was 560 higher than in May last year and 779 more than in April this year.
“The May results show further steady increases in volumes across New Zealand with particular strength coming from the Auckland market. Although prices eased slightly, there are signs of pressure building, with a lack of new listings becoming apparent in many parts of the city”, said REINZ chief executive Helen O’Sullivan.
“We are also seeing indications from a number of other parts of the country of an emerging shortage of listings.”
O'Sullivan said the BNZ-REINZ survey of real estate agents showed "poor quality of listings" (22.4%) had emerged as the second most popular reason holding buyers back, replacing "worries about securing finance" (15.9%), and behind "they feel prices will decline" (30.3%). Also moving ahead of the concerns about securing finance category was "not confident they can sell their house" at 20.4%.
"In addition to the tightening market in Auckland, concerns about shortages of listings are appearing in Palmerton North, Taranaki and certain parts of Christchurch," she said.
"Despite volumes rising from previous levels the real estate market is only just starting to emerge from a sustained slump in activity. The number of sales in May 2011 was just 62% of the volumes in the month of May 2007 (5,776 vs 9,285). For the 12 months ended May 2007 there were 105,886 sales compared to 55,389 for the 12 months ended May 2011," O'Sullivan added.
Meanwhile, the REINZ Housing Price Index fell 1.8% in May from the previous month, with the stratified median house price at just under NZ$359,000.
The REINZ Housing Price Index recorded increases in Christchurch and "other North Island," but falls in Auckland, Wellington and "other South Island."
Compared with May last year, the Housing Price Index fell 0.7%, leaving the Index 5.8% below the November 2007 peak.
See REINZ's press release here and full report here.
Volumes sold - REINZ
Select chart tabs
(Update adds detail on, and link to, BNZ-REINZ real estate agent survey).
67 Comments
Well, this comment sure didn't age well. I've come from the future to advise that time has proven you doom and gloom merchants monumentally & embarrassingly wrong. But you lot did win in one sense as this site has become infested with you people, still regurgitating the same nonsense eight years later, so congrats.
There is a 'shortage' of listing because vendors are holding back, waiting for 'the good times' to re-emerge. They aren't going to. Then, the log-jam will break, and the market will be awash with desperate vendors, clambering over each other ( I believe it's called "leapfrogging") to attract the ,by now, conditioned purchasers. New Zealand has a finite borrowing capacity at viable interest rates ( Ask the Rating Agencies if you have a doubt!). Today, in Christchurch, we saw a further need to re-allocate that borrowing capacity away from non-productive assets and into repair/replacement. That's less credit available to the property market = lower prices.
"In addition to the tightening market in Auckland, concerns about shortages of listings are appearing in Palmerton North, Taranaki and certain parts of Christchurch," she said.
Did they pull these regions out of a hat? I've been tracking Palmerston North (my wife's hometown) for two years now, there is a shortage of buyers there, not a shortage of listings!
"A common theme amongst real estate agents in Auckland is the low level of new listings and increasing buyer frustration in finding properties that meet their needs"
Exactly, no one is investing and no one wants to buy the ex-rentals that the PI's are trying to flick off.
I was actaully going to PM Bernard today on this point Gareth because of inside knowledge I have of one Auckland area. This particular area has been one of those that have managed to keep ticking over despite the slow down in other areas, but even this area has now fallen flat.
What has been happening is the experience agents have been working all thier contacts hard over the last two years, but even their momentum has finally dropped as they have exhausted all avenues. Agents that up until a month ago still had reasonably number of listings have sold them all, but not been able to replace them.
It is not surprising really as the work that agents do typically has a lagg time of around 12-24 months before it shows up as listings and sales.
What you are now seeing is that last throw of the dice as the work from 12-24 months ago peters out and there is no substance left to replace it.
Expect a downhill run over the rest of the year and more agency closures.
Horses for courses. We sold for $100K over what we paid in Dec 2008. Had 3 offers all within $10K of each by the first weekend. But then we are looking to buy in an area where property has been on the market for years and was on the QV biggest sliders list. Alot of developers seem to just be building and hoping stuff will sell. They seem to be discounting the stuff they have built and trying to inflate the section prices to discourage competition. For example you can buy a brand new 4 beddie on 700m2 for under $500K, but the sections are still listed at $250K+. Would cost at least $280K+ to build something similar.
Tell that to my friend the builder who this coming weekend is moving into the 3 bedroom home he built from scratch for a grand total of well under $90k. This is no plywood box, it's a very nice home.
There's an enormous margin being added to residential construction in this country, and it's the home buyers who are copping it.
Before you leap about frothing that I'm telling lies and it can't possibly be done, I'll ask my friend if I can post more detailed information about the house and costs here.
Wellington house prices fall 5.2 per cent
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5139276/Wellington-house-prices-fall-5-2-per-cent
"Dreeeeaaam...dream dream dream, dreeeeaaam..."
Property spruiking just gets harder, doesn't it SK? Fewer and fewer people are willing to believe the lies and are beginning to see the truth, but still you trundle out the "SHE'S ALL GOING GREAT!" rubbish because you don't know what else to do. At least we get to laugh at you, so it's not all bad.
L.O.L.
QV's national house price index gives the clearest picture of the price change from the peak of 2007 to the end of April (with the movement over the past year in brackets):
* Auckland: down 2.3% (-0.5%)
* Whangarei: down 19.3% (-5.2%)
* Hamilton: down 12.1% (-3.5%)
* Tauranga: down 12.1% (-1.7%)
* Rotorua: down 12.4% (-1%)
* Wellington: down 6.3% (-3.4%)
AUCKLAND:
THE QUARTER CLIMBERS % UP
1 Snells Beach +4.5%
2 Wellsford +4.2%
3 St Johns +3.4%
4 Pt England +3.7%
5 Northcote +3.6%
6= Highland Park and Westmere +2.7%
8= Mt Eden, Glendene and Glen Innes +2.6%
THE QUARTER SLIDERS % DOWN
1 Manurewa East -8.0%
2 Otara -6.7%
3 Herne Bay -4.7%
4 St Marys Bay -2.8%
5= Favona and Gulf Harbour -2.7%
7= Kohimarama and Pukekohe -2.2%
9= Ellerslie and Army Bay -2.1%
Souce:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=107…
well that pretty much dismisses SK's point
Here's food for thought....
Even if the EVENTUAL rebuild of Chch gives a bit of a GDP boost to the overall GDP for the country, isn't there a case to argue GDP growth by REGIONs OUTSIDE CHCH is going to be muted for some time???
Especially for SK - what signals in the Auckland economy do you see that make you so bullish about Auckland property? (remembering that health of the housing sector is related to health of economy) I'll keep an open mind and look forward to your argument, but I really struggle to find optimism in Auckland's economy over the next few years - heck of a lot of funding is going to be diverted to ChCh
In the field I work in -architecture and engineering - most consultancies have refocussed their growth plans to ChCh - staff, money,investment, skills is going to be diverted out of Auckland
Mate thats quite interesting. Most of the falls are in old established exclusive suburbs and most of the climbers are in the grotholes. Is this due to people not able to afford the super expensive areas moving on to the duds and driving the prices up in those spots? House prices in GI cant be anywhere near the prices in places like Kohi-St Marys Bay-Herne Bay and if people are going there in droves it's bound to push prices up some. But it is probably temporary when things return to an even keel.
Manurewa East and Otara have never been stars let's face it! But the prices at exclusive places and St Marys Bay especially have been going sky high for years until the bubble popped and even now are still ridiculously high for what you get there. No wonder people are flocking to the only places left in the city that could be said to be affordable like Glen Innes and other dumps.
Looking at the market and the recent history of it I can't see property climbing higher for much longer but I can see it all heading down even more soon. The recent climbers are not the norm, I am sure they are just temp bubbles formed by the ones willing to buy in junky areas mostly.
But I am sure Uncle Olly or one of his other log-ins will come along soon and tell us how investment property has never been better and we are all fools for not buying his property off of him for 2007 prices. Lol!
Most those place listed in the top 10 are OK. St Johns, Mt Eden, Highland Park are all quite nice. I think your hate and anger is blinding you. It's alright that some areas are showing some growth for the most part things are on the way down. Just take a chill pill and try not to be such a hater.
When I first looked at Trademe listings for "New Plymouth District" 2 yrs ago there was 318 listings forsale - as off 2days ago 703 - Where does REINZ see a shortage.
We used to have 5 open homes in NP at the 2007 selling peak" - now there a 2 pages to choose from
Also- 200 odd rentals available.
Couldn't find a house below 300k asking - now theres plenty.
The naki is doin very well - oil exploration / production and Dairy farmers happy with their incomes.
It's a nice place. I'd choose NP over Auckland anyday.
Auckland is just this soulless suburban sprawl, with no heart. A place that tells itself it's a "real" city, when it's just an over grown cowtown on an endless rainy Sunday afternoon, where almost everything still shuts at 5 pm. It's a dull and forgotten rural town with none of the virtues of a real city, but most of the vices of one: lots of stupid, petty crime; ludicrously bad traffic woes; pollution, filth and grafitti; constant noise, etc. Those things are tolerable in places like NYC or Paris or London because with the bad you get the good, but not Auckland.
Still, the harbour and gulf are nice, I'll grant you that. But not worth paying the asked for idiot property prices.
A long time ago, in a different life, I used to conduct interviews with criminals.
Despite everything the news-starved popular media would have you believe, every single one of those criminals was as dumb as a box of bricks.
The crims, on the other hand, were convinced they were the cleverest, most cunning evil geniuses on the planet, capable of selling snow to Eskimoes, etc.
It was bemusing to watch and listen as they told you the stupidest, most transparent pack of lies and bullsh*t you ever heard.
The crims honestly thought their audience was sold.
Property spruikers cause me to experience flashbacks to those days.
Are Aucklanders being squeezed out of affordable housing by Chinese property speculators?
I think the confusion comes out of comparing old listings with new listings. In most parts of the country the overall inventory is growing, bloated by overpriced, stale properties that have sat with unrealistic vendors and no interest for months on end. New listings coming on have largely been priced more competitively and have been sold - rising volumes, falling prices. This is the issue for REs - they have a surplus of overpriced property, but not enough well priced property to sell. As suggested above, spring will see a rush of properties onto the market as normal, just as inflation bites and interest rates start climbing. And prices will fall.
"Read the numbers - its all there."
Um, some suburbs in Auckland took a hamming year-on-year (North Shore / Waitakare), and others don't look good when you take inflation into account.
And then you take Rodney out of the equation, which isn't Auckland anyway, and the year-on-year growth is basically... "zero".
The figures are all there SK, but you have to sharpen up if you want to get to them...
Taradale - Napier. Sold signs on many family homes 400 - 550K. Property near te us, large section on 5000m - listed for 1.1 million, sold for 900K - subdivided now with 4 x 800m sections with a build package selling for 500+k ea. 2 sold already. Existing house staying. So plenty of demand (& sales) for quality 4 bed homes in the suburbs in Napier.... And with the OCR about to be lowered again this year to 2.0 then floating rates will be soon down to 4.9% ... it's all good ... silver linings in the soon coming Depression ...
An old mate of mine used to own a video shop.
He had a method of getting the slow renters out the door.
He would put "Sorry, I'm Out" tags on all the most desirable stuff at the beginning of the day.
As people came in and rented what was supposedly left, he would gradually swap the tags until all of the slow stuff was out and then he'd rent out the popular stuff.
When other shops closed for the night with most of their movies unrented, save the popular new releases, my mate had nothing left on his shelf.
Made a bloody fortune, the cunning old bugger.
RE sleaze did the same thing with the least desirable sections in subdivisions, to get them off the books ASAP.
It's why you used to see "Sold, pending blah blah blah" labels on all the best sections in those pretty sub division plans in your local rag, even though the properties had barely even gone on the market.
Over time, if you paid attention, you'd see the labels moved around, as the RE sleaze flicked off the junk sections and then opened up the better sections, then the best ones, which went much faster than the rest.
Well, that's what they did back in the good old days when people were still buying property.
Now the RE sleaze just sit in their offices all day long weeping, with a loaded revolver in their laps.
Oh for the "Good Old Days", eh?
http://www.barfoot.co.nz/455552
What do you think this gem is worth?
Just watched it get auctioned at the Chancery.
ridiculous
SK - you never reply to my views on the economy and how that will affect house prices in Auckland
Either you can't produce a solid counter argument, or you believe the economy is going to be strong going forward and have just not articulated that?
If you do think we are strong going forward (particularly with reference to Auckland) please explain why
Pumpkin Patch cuts 55 jobs:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10732435
that recovery the bank economists and the pollies and SK harp on about is looking really really promising...
yeah right
gotta love it, full page ad in this week's Property Press with a Peter Thompson quote in big bold letters proclaiming average prices eased
priceless, thats going on my wall
good on them I guess - at least they haven't hidden the truth - far from it!!!
SK, still waiting
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