Housing market reaches 'comfortable plateau'
Full regional report hereProperty sales bounced strongly in March after experiencing a significant fall earlier this year, the latest figures from the Real Estate Institute show. The figures also show there has been a firming of the national median selling price to above the $300,000 level for the first t
Tuesday, April 18th 2006, 12:00AM
by The Landlord
ime.The media selling price reached a record of $300,000 in November, but during the past four months it has oscillated between $295,000 and $300,000. However the sheer volume of sales finally pushed the national median price through to $302,000 in March.
Sales in March rose from 7,930 in February to 10,094. Auckland was behind much of the recovery and although its median price was unchanged at $385,000 over the February figure, sales were up from 2,374 in February to 3,474 in March.
“The market’s confidence has returned after the uncertainty arising from rising interest rates and the disruptions of the holiday period”, REINZ national president Howard Morley says. “The market was much more liquid in March, witnessed by the fall in days to sell from 37 in February to 33 in March, with both Auckland, down from 40 days to sell to 34 days to sell and Canterbury, down from 36 to 30 days to sell, showing a good recovery,” Morley said.
On a year-on-year basis the national median was up 7.66% from $280,500 to $302,000.
“The rate of annual growth has been slowing as would be expected, with most of the rise in the market having occurred in 2004 and 2005 but now the price growth curve is flattening out and the market appears to have reached a comfortable plateau”.
Regional round up
There were five rises, six falls and one region with an unchanged median.
Northland was up from $275,000 in February to $280,000, Auckland was unchanged at $385,000 while Waikato/Bay of Plenty was down slightly from $280,000 to $272,500.
Hawkes Bay improved from $255,000 in February to $277,750, while the Manawatu/Wanganui median was down from $190,000 to $179,500. Taranaki also saw a fall in its median from $249,000 to $225,000.
Wellington produced a solid increase from $305,000 in February to $323,000, on the back of an increase in sales from 992 in February to 1,145 in March.
Nelson/Marlborough was back to its January median of $280,000 from the $290,000 achieved in February. Canterbury/Westland fell slightly from $267,125 to $266,050 in March.
Central Otago Lakes was down again from $445,000 to $395,000 in March. While the Otago median rose from $210,000 to $219,000.
The Southland median rose to reach $129,000 from $125,000 in February.
The leading region in the year to March 2006 was Manawatu/Wanganui up 15.80%, closely followed by the Hawkes Bay up 15.72% and Northland up 15.70%.
Sales of properties under $400,000 increased from 5,823 in February to 7204 in March, but were down on the March 2005 figure of 7,752.
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