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Housing market remains on its steady course as new listings start to rise as we head into spring, Realestate.co.nz says

Property
Housing market remains on its steady course as new listings start to rise as we head into spring, Realestate.co.nz says

The housing market appears to be bouncing back from its winter lows with a 16.4% jump in new listings on Realestate.co.nz in August.

The property website listed 8739 additional properties for sale in August compared with 7508 in July, suggesting the market bottomed out in July and vendors are starting to gear up for the usual spring surge.

August's new listing figures were almost unchanged from August last year when the website attracted 8729 new listings, suggesting the market could be holding a steady course and following normal seasonal trends.

The improvement in new listings in August compared to July was evident in all parts of the country except the Coromandel and Taranaki, where new listings were down slightly.

The spring bounce was particularly strong in the main centres with August's new listings in the Wellington region up 26.6% compared to July, followed by Auckland up 22.7% and Canterbury up 17.8%.

The total number of homes available for sale on the website was relatively stable, with total stock of 21,207 properties for sale throughout the country at the end of August, down by 0.38% compared to July and down 1.6% compared to August last year.

But there were significant regional variations, with total stock levels up strongly in the Waikato up 12.6%, Nelson & Bays up 18.6%, and Canterbury up 11.7%, and smaller rises in Auckland up 1.1% and Bay of Plenty up 0.8% compared to August last year, while stock levels were down in all other regions compared to a year ago (see chart below for the full regional figures).

The national average asking price also bounced back from $635,020 in July to $652,894 in August, ending three consecutive months of declines, but remained below the record high of $673,659 achieved in February.

Queenstown Lakes retained its title as the most expensive place in the country with an average asking price of $977,901 in August, compared to Auckland's average asking price of $932,708.

August was the fourth month in a row that the average asking price has increased in Queenstown Lakes, but it remains below its record high of $1,088,209 set in December last year.

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48 Comments

Considering it's been the wettest winter ever sales are not bad overall. Auckland market down slightly on asking price but vendors will be now asking above RV again as we move into summer. Not much has changed it's a flat market.

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Hi Carlos,

As for Wellington, the headline in this morning's DominionPost/Stuff reads, "TIGHT WELLINGTON MARKET SEES ANOTHER RISE IN ASKING PRICES". (4 September 2018)

The text goes on to read, "The average asking price for a house in Wellington continues to rise, as the number of houses listed for sale drops."

And then:

"Wellington's average asking price increased 1.7 per cent in August, to $639,553, while some regions have experienced an even sharper rise."

Clearly, therefore, it's not all doom and gloom in the housing market....... Infact, the market has proven remarkably resilient.

TTP

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ASKING PRICES

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Exactly. A quote from Olly Newland "the price you ask isn't always what you get" or words to that effect :)

Many NZ venders have yet to realize this. I blame the real estate agents. Their quest for new listings and their accompanying tactics are at the core.

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In Wellington, house prices are far higher than they were two years ago........

Not infrequently, houses have sold for MORE than the asking price - because of strong competition between buyers.

Ask anyone who's been house-hunting in Wellington's inner-city suburbs. There's been a chronic shortage of listings for the last 3-4 years - so little surprise that asking/selling prices have both risen steadily through most of this period.

TTP

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My dad will be listing his Hataitai house in November. 3 bedroom detached townhouse on 250 square metres on Overtoun Terrace, 10 years old, valuation is about $1.15 million. Reckon he's a shot at $1.2 million???

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"what you ask isn't always what you get"

Very true RP, your prediction of a 40% drop in values has not quite eventuated yet

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Indeed. They've got to bury the news that the median sales price achieved in Wellington fell from $600,000 to $545,000 between June and July.

To be fair I bet that 90% of the real estate agents don't even know that, all they know is that the easiest way to win the next listing is to be the agent that is the most enthusiastic about the price they can get an owner - it's like a silly bidding process with monopoly money to try and win some business, it'll get worse before it gets better. I'm starting to see a good number of familiar houses returning to the market having not sold last season and having had a break over winterl. Average time on market stats are just a joke.

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Overly cynical once again Nic; and delving deeper into stats shows you are wrong in the case of Welly (well except for the RA's enthusiasm which is very apparent - but remember they need people to sell as well as are starved of listings so the higher forever price story isn't in their best interest either):

https://relatable.co.nz/2018/08/15/wellington-city-real-estate-report-a…

“How much over RV are houses usually selling at the moment?”

+50% for Houses (up from +37% in July 2017)
+45% for Apartments (up from +31% in July 2017)

These are the highest figures ever recorded in any single month for either property type, just beating last months records!"

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Sorry Simon.

If you read the REINZ report. The figures are quite transparent that the median achieved sales price for the Wellington Region fell from $600,000 in June 2018 to $545,000 in July 2018 a monthly fall of 9%. It's all there in the numbers and I reiterate that that is in a low volume market where there was not a lot for sale.

I guess you chose to cherry pick a smaller sample set of sales that are not really indicative of the entire region.

https://www.reinz.co.nz/Media/Default/Statistic%20Documents/2018/Reside…

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https://www.reinz.co.nz/Media/Default/Statistic%20Documents/2018/Reside…

Index , or loosely ‘the relative to RV measure’, up 1.3% last month = double digit gains over 12 months.

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I think you may be trying to read things too simply Simon.

The relative to RV measure is irrelevant compared to actual median sales price adjustments, which have largely been running negative and will continue to do so for the rest of the year. Comparisons to 12 months ago are also redundant now. Comparisons to last 4-5 months are much more relevant.

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There's no point Simon, the DGMs on this site know better than the whole world put together.

"The REINZ HPI (House Price Index) provides a level of detail and understanding of the true movements of housing values over time to a higher standard than before.
The REINZ HPI was developed in partnership with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and provides a more complete picture of the New Zealand housing market"

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I could imagine Yvil in Zimbabwe or during any hyperinflation labelling anyone showing discontent as a doom and gloom merchant.

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In Zimbabwe, Yvil would only do it once......

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Nic,this is the heading from YOUR OWN link:

"House prices across New Zealand have continued to rise in July with a 6.2% increase year-on-year with a median price for the country of $550,000 according to the latest data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ), source of the most complete and accurate real estate data in New Zealand."

How on earth does that support your claim that:

"I guess you chose to cherry pick a smaller sample set of sales that are not really indicative of the entire region."

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Nzdan
Capital and bold font, so that's what gets lot of thumbs up on this site lol

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IT SURE IS. I WONDER IF THE SITE WILL ALLOW ME TO REGISTER A PROFILE NAME USING HTML TAGS.

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; )

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"Wellington asking prices rise" as unsold inventory falls

Clearly, as the lower-end properties sell out, that leaves the higher priced end of the market, not selling, and thus pushing up the asking price of that reduced but unsold-remainder

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Unaffordable housing is doom and gloom for working class New Zealanders. Have a heart.

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Nobody really cares about those people

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Speculators pulling the ejection handle. Plenty of posts on property talk. Hope the tax man is taking notice.

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6 o'clock news is at 6 o'clock today. Weather forecast is not that good. Hope it won't rain

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Listings and asking prices. Just gotta wave your magic wand and turn them into sales and selling prices before they mean didly squat.

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Next thing you know we will be using "Average Asking Wage" stats as evidence we aren't a low wage economy.

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Nobody can afford anything right now. Even Mike Hosking is renting in the wop-wops where he attended a local market and tasted some feta cheese over the weekend.

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Whatatool........

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How is it that Brisbane is still able to have land and 3 bed house packages for $450k ?

I was north of Brisbane (25kms) on the weekend , which is about the distance of Silverdale from Auckland, and there were billboards advertising these deals .

What the hell have we done wrong to get into the mess we find ourselves ?

And more importantly, how is it we seem to have no way out of the hole in which we find ourselves ?

And these are not rhetorical questions by the way .

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I know a couple of people who have left Auckland for Brisbane, for the combination of wage parity or higher, lower living costs, and affordable housing. They had recently received their NZ citizenship and were off to Australia, as has been common.

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That's not even cheap for Brisbane these days. Check out realestate.com.au, you can get 4 bedrooms for that much, that far out of Brisbane.

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Australia is different story.. Bank audit, royal commission finding flaws in the system and some cleaning up is happening..
Hope we follow the same direction

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shhhh... It's all a secret.

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Hi Boatman

It's because everything has been inflated by overly loose credit, hype and competition with foreign cash. The banks have done very well, the builders have done pretty good too and the suppliers of materials have also benefitted as each were able to push their prices to clip the 'credit ticket'..

If however the supply of credit slows then we have a deflationary environment that will bring prices right back down - a scenario that seems to be terrifying many. However Mr Chaston's lending analysis of yesterday (and last months contraction in the overall supply of credit in NZ (combined household and businesses)) would suggest that we are at the start of that journey - its also why we're already seeing building firms going bust, which is happening very early in the downturn.

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Housing is NOT UNAFFORDABLE in Nz.
Move if you can’t afford housing.
Christchurch is a thriving metropolis

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Well... anything is unaffordable to those who can't afford it ; )

Chch a metropolis? I lived in Sumner for 18 years, I think Chch is more of a large village

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Housing is NOT UNAFFORDABLE in Nz.

It's classed as severely unaffordable by objective standards. Are you trolling?

Christchurch is a thriving metropolis

LMAO. Ok, you are definitely trolling!

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Actually housing is only classed as "unaffordable" in Queenstown and Auckland if you have been following Greg's affordability reports on this site

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Except his reports aren't about affordability of housing.. they are about affordability of the mortgage once you buy the house, and based on his criteria, which many people would disagree with.

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ha ha classic!
Apart from Auckland (which at best is at the small end of medium city status) every city in NZ is a large town, at best!

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Please tell me you're joking

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For property investors who own investment properties and rent these out on Airbnb / Bookabach etc, the cashflow economics just got worse. Not sure what the gross rental yields are on properties rented out on Airbnb, etc, as it would depend on their vacancy rates. For some who rent out on a casual basis, wonder if the Airbnb tax now puts these properties into negative cashflow, and puts financial stress on these owners. - https://www.propertytalk.com/forum/showthread.php?43023-AirBnB-Rates-Bi…

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Tiny violin playing....

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How quickly the supply/demand ratio for rentals can turn. (Last I heard there was a massive undersupply of rentals in Sydney!)

"(Investor couple) have two big problems in Sydney's sliding housing market. The first is that they can't sell their property because they will lose money. The second is that they are struggling to get tenants....If (The Government) removes negative gearing ... that will make a bad situation far worse. Many people won't be able to afford their properties and they will dump their houses .....".....But it is vacancy that is the new issue.

https://www.afr.com/real-estate/rental-vacancies-on-the-rise-in-sydney-…

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Was just browsing TradeMe for rentals out of interest. Saw some in Auckland offering 1 or 2 weeks free rent, and no letting fee.

Also, one of the larger Pretend Tertiary Education (PTE) providers in Auckland has canceled its IT stream due to lack of interest. Maybe more requirement to actually follow the rules is reducing incoming PTE volumes?

We live in interesting times.

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"I haven't seen a surge of people selling because of refinancing issues but I feel it's coming," he said.

Check out this anecdotal story on this twitter feed - referring to the Australian lending market - the LVR was below 50%, yet the borrower couldn't meet their debt servicing, so the bank called in the loan and the borrower was forced to sell... Not sure if this is going to happen in NZ, but if the banks start calling in loans, this is going to put a lot of highly leveraged property investors in a precarious financial position.

https://twitter.com/thechartist/status/1036130716621230080

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Why do you wonder about Airbnb rented properties CN, do you own any?

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Life is wonderful in NZ : )))

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