by Jenny Ruth
Prices of the top 15% of sales, those priced over $497,000, jumped 17% in the 12 months to January.
Bayleys note this price increase comes against a drop off in the number of property sales (this appears to be due to fewer properties being offered for sale), not to any lessening of demand, it says.
The number of sales in the top 15% bracket were down 29% in the three months ended January compared with the three months ended October and were down 15.9% on the same three months a year earlier.
Nevertheless, the 739 sales in the latest quarter were still 27.6% up on the number in the three months ended January 2001.
"The latest numbers also show the growth in the median price for the top 15% over the last six years has been outperforming the overall market," the firm says. The median price for this bracket has grown 47% from about $450,000 in January 1997 to about $650,000.
Over the same period, the median price for the overall market grew 19.6%.
The number of $1 million-plus sales also slowed to 119 for the three months ended January from a record 162 in the previous three months and 149 in the three months ended July last year.
Another measure of how strong the top 15% of the market is is the number of days it takes to sell a house. Usually, this is between 55 and 75 days and was close to 70 days for most of 2000 and 2001. Now it takes only about 46 days to sell, suggesting no diminishing in demand.
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