by Jenny Ruth
The one statistic in the latest Real Estate Institute figures in keeping with the notion that the housing market is cooling was the number of houses sold. They shrank from 8,367 in June to 7,802 in July, a 23% drop from the 10,138 sold in July last year and only a handful more than the 7,795were sold in July last year.
The national median house price jumped from $243,000 in June to $249,000 in July. That exceeded the previous record of $248,000 set in May. The July price is 17.9% higher than the $211,250 recorded in July last year.
That suggests a re-acceleration of house price inflation since June’s price was 15.7% higher than in June last year.
The number of days it takes to sell a house nudged down to 30 days in July from 31 in June.
Institute president Graeme Woodley says it’s significant that most of the reduction in sales occurred in the under $400,000 properties where sales fell from 6,860 in June to 6,337 in July. Sales of houses above $600,000 actually rose slightly from 514 to 519.
"This tends to indicate that recent interest rates increases appear to be having more impact among thos buying cheaper houses than those buying more expensive homes," Woodley says.
"The Reserve Bank’s determination to dampen demand by increasing the official cash rate in recent months has done relatively little to half the residential property market overall, but has impacted most on those who can probably least afford for their mortgage rates to rise."
Deutsche Bank chief economist Ulf Schoefisch also concentrates on the sales figures, noting they’re down 8.7% in July from June in seasonally adjusted terms and 33% below the peak in September. Sales are also at their lowest level in any month since December 2001 in seasonally adjusted terms, he says.
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