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Property values have held firm through the worst of the economic downturn, supported by limited supply, historically low interest rates, and increased market sentiment.
Photo: RNZ
CoreLogic’s House Price Index for September indicates that property values increased 0.8 percent from the previous three months, after an overall stagnation since May.
The real estate research firm said values rose 7.6 percent over the past year.
“The limited available supply, in the form of a low number of listings for sale, continues to be a key factor in the housing market’s resistance to lower values,” CoreLogic said.
“In addition, the absence of a significant increase in unemployment (still) has minimized the number of urgent listings or strongly motivated suppliers willing to discount their price.”
However, he said the potential for further weakness in the labor market was a risk to the market.
The latest data from realestate.co.nz indicates that values have continued to rise with the national average sales price 11.5 percent higher than last year.
The median sales price in Auckland in September topped $ 1 million for the first time in the site’s 13-year recordings, while Taranaki and Central North Island also hit 13-year all-time highs.
Their data showed that 10 of the 19 regions were experiencing low inventory levels of homes for sale.
The executive director of the sales website, Sarah Wood, said Morning report homes listed on the market are selling very quickly and there is demand from New Zealanders returning home.
Wood said New Zealand needed to speed up housing construction, and that the country is still in a recovery phase after the global financial crisis, when many housing developments were put on hold.
