THE MONTH THE HOUSING MARKET FINALLY BROKE
Jaspal Singh has been looking to buy a house for his family for the past two months.
This weekend, he turned up with his chequebook to the auction of a newbuild property on Great South Rd, Papatoetoe. But he and the other prospective buyers walked away empty-handed with the house expected to sell privately for more than $1 million.
‘‘These houses are going very high this time,’’ he said. ‘‘Last time properties were like $500,000 or $600,000. This time every house we’re looking at is over a million.’’
The average Auckland house price is expected to tip the $1m mark when the latest official figures are released this week. The latest milestone has led to Housing Minister Nick Smith being dubbed ‘‘the milliondollar minister’’.
Official confirmation of the $1m average is expected on Thursday when QV releases its latest monthly house price figures.
Nick Goodall from CoreLogic, which works closely with QV, said: ‘‘I don’t know for sure that the average Auckland house price has hit $1 million, but I would put a fair bet it is given the current rate of increase.’’
Goodall said price rises did not appear to have slowed since the last set of QV figures for July were published. Then the average Auckland house sold for $975,000.
He said CoreLogic would get to see the figures on Monday.
In an interview on TV3’s The Nation, Smith was dubbed the ‘‘the million-dollar minister’’.
The Auckland property market continued apace with dozens of open homes and auctions yesterday.
Estate agent Rubal Singh, who was auctioning the Great South Rd property, said he was in talks with a buyer to sell the property.
The six-bedroom, three-bathroom house was still a few months away from being finished. The driveway is still being sealed, and it hadn’t been granted a copy of title.
But Rubal Singh said that hadn’t deterred prospective buyers from coming in their droves. ‘‘We’ve had heaps of interested parties through. At least six or seven to every open home.’’
More than 50 of Auckland’s suburbs have average values of greater than $1m. Last year, Herne
You would have tens of thousands of Kiwi families effectively gone broke. Their mortgages would be worth more than their homes. Housing Minister Nick Smith on a big price drop
Bay became the first suburb with an average value of $2m.
When challenged about rising house prices, Smith told The Nation that ‘‘the objective was to see house price inflation in single digits’’ saying the scale of recent rises was unsustainable.
If there were a big price drop, Smith said: ‘‘You would have tens of thousands of Kiwi families effectively gone broke. Their mortgages would be worth more than their homes. ‘‘I’m not going to endorse that.’’ Smith did not expect to see prices crash before the next election because of the booming economy and population increase in Auckland.
He said the number of homes being built had risen sharply under National.
Gower pressed the minister on whether he would crack down on land bankers who wait for prices to rise, rather than building homes.
Smith said governments could not force land bankers to build homes, but said any special housing areas in Auckland that had not received consents to build by 16 September would lose their special housing area status.