Northland Property Investors' Association

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News & Updates

Recent updates

07-01-2015

House sellers benefit from higher asking prices as inventory of homes for sale declines.

The average asking price of houses for sale in December

remained at high levels across the country, while inventory of available homes for sale declined

reaching record low levels in Auckland. Overall, the latest monthly data from Realestate.co.nz

indicates that the NZ property market continues to favour sellers, and increasingly so.

While the national average asking price in December of $480,815 was slightly down on November,

a fall of 3.9%, it was still 7% up on the same time a year ago. Meanwhile in Auckland, the average

asking price of $731,083 was only marginally below the all time record of $731,588 set in

November. The December average asking prices in Wellington and Canterbury were $462,511

and $450,919 respectively.

The more dramatic indice in December was the shrinking inventory of homes for sale across the

country, which fell to its lowest level since November 2013.

Inventory is expressed as a theoretical measure of the number of weeks it would take to sell all

unsold housing stock on the market at a given point in time. The long-term national average is 36

weeks, however in December inventory fell to just 24.5 weeks of stock, with 15 of 19 regions

experiencing falls in available property levels.

Auckland drove the fall in inventory, registering an all time low of 10.8 weeks of stock in

December, a 21% fall on November, and a 13% drop on the same month in 2013. Bay of Plenty

also saw a new record low of 31 weeks.

The CEO of Realestate.co.nz Brendon Skipper says “the shortage in the number of homes for

sale, especially in the three main centres, underlines the favorable environment house sellers

enjoy as they seek to maximise the value of their homes on the property market. In total we now

have just 37,537 homes for sale in New Zealand, which is the lowest since September 2013.”

As per the seasonal trend, December was a quiet month for new listings with just 8,283 new

homes coming on the market across the country, 39% down on November though slightly up, by

3.4%, on the same month in 2013.

“The number of new listings tends to remain low through January, however we do expect to see a

significant lift of homes coming on to the market in February and March this year, which will help to

ease the current low levels of inventory that we are experiencing,” says Mr Skipper.

About Realestate.co.nz

Realestate.co.nz is the official website of the New Zealand real estate industry, and provides the

most comprehensive selection of licensed real estate listings across all categories of real estate.

Realestate.co.nz lists more than 120,000 properties each year, representing more than 97 per

cent of all listings currently marketed by real estate professionals.

ENDS

Press release by Brendon Skipper, CEO

Tags: housing affordability

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