Latest figures confirm house prices soften
Annual growth in house prices nationally in February was steady at 13.5% although the average sale price jumped 5.9% from January to $289,740, the latest Quotable Value figures show.
Sunday, March 13th 2005, 10:45PM
by Jenny Ruth
However, most areas are showing a gradual decline in annual price growth. "There’s still good growth in property values in the regional centres in New Zealand but the annual change continues to point to a gradual softening in the market," says Blue Hancock of QV Valuations.
Indeed, two of the areas where price growth had been ferocious are now showing annual declines: the average sale price in Nelson fell 4.3% from last February while Tasman’s was down 1.4%.
At the other end of the scale, the average sale price in Opotiki was up a whopping 57.3%.
Price growth in the largest regional market, Auckland, is now down to single figures at 7.1% while in the Wellington region prices grew at a slightly faster 10.7%.
Smaller cities are still showing well above average growth. New Plymouth prices were up 32.6%, Dunedin’s up 27.8%, Tauranga’s up 24.3%, Christchurch’s up 18.7%, Napier’s up 16.8% and Hamilton’s up 15.6%.
QV’s figures use a residential index methodology, comparing the sale price of each property sold to its capital value. That’s in contrast to the Real Estate Institute’s figures which are based on actual sales only.
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