‘Too many’ shut out of housing
Too many people have been taken out of the property market, Corelogic says.
The property research firm’s head of research, Jonno Ingerson, said the usual winter drop in market activity had hit, and was compounded by Reserve Bank restrictions on small-deposit loans and on investors.
There was also political uncertainty ahead of the election, he said, and affordability was keeping buyers out in Auckland.
Corelogic’s data showed that fewer people were applying to the banks for money. ‘‘That means fewer out on the street looking to buy property,’’ Ingerson said.
Real Estate Institute data showed that, in May, sales numbers in Auckland were down 27.5 per cent on the year before, and 18.4 per cent nationwide, or 13.6 per cent outside Auckland.
Ingerson said while Auckland and Christchurch property values had started to drop off, Hamilton and Tauranga’s were flattening and the strong increases seen a year ago in other parts of the country were ‘‘ancient history’’.
He said, as a percentage of sales, first-home buyers were holding their own.
Corelogic data shows that nationwide, investors are 39 per cent of the market, versus firsthome buyers’ 21 per cent. In Auckland this was 44 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively.
But Ingerson said given the smaller number of sales, the actual numbers of first-home buyers getting into their own properties had fallen markedly.
‘‘The number of cash investors is unchanged over time … If they want to buy property, they just buy. [Investors] who need a mortgage have dropped away considerably; they are at the lowest level we’ve seen since during the GFC.’’
First-home buyers were the collateral damage, he said. The number of sales to first-home buyers was the lowest in 20 years.