Sunny regions bask in rising property prices
Property sellers got most optimistic in the country’s holiday hotspots last month, with Wairarapa just outside Wellington leading the pack in terms of asking prices.
Property website realestate.co.nz said there was a noticeable a lift in the advertised price of properties in several sun-drenched parts of the country, including Gisborne, Northland, Coromandel and Hawke’s Bay.
Wairarapa was the hottest region, with average asking prices up 11.8 per cent to $520,110, compared to November.
Its most searched suburb was Masterton, where there has been a critical shortage of rental properties.
Realestate.co.nz spokeswoman Vanessa Taylor said Wellington’s housing shortage was likely a big factor, with searchers largely hailing from either the capital, Auckland and Hawke’s Bay, rather than the region itself.
‘‘It’s one hour north of Wellington city by train or car and given the tightness of this region, we would expect people to look further afield to the Wairarapa,’’ she says.
Other sunny regions to see an increase in asking price were Gisborne, up 6.9 per cent (to $392,201), Coromandel up 6.1 per cent ($709,570) , Hawke’s Bay up 5 per cent ($532,512) and Northland up 2.6 per cent (601,352).
Nationally, the property market showed signs of stabilising. December’s national average asking price for a home was $673,043, up 3 per cent on the previous month and 1.9 per cent on a year ago.
It was the lowest year-on-year increase in December since 2012 and a far cry from the nearly 17 per cent gain made in 2016.
‘‘While this may well be a correction rather than a trend, this past year has seen the market stabilise compared to the extremes of previous years,’’ Taylor said.
Perhaps because people tend to flee the cities in December, price expectations were not as high in the main centres.
In Auckland, asking prices rose just 0.5 per cent on November to $953,950, after several years as a stellar performer, and they fell nearly 3 per cent on a year ago.
Canterbury, another flattening market, saw asking prices rise 1.7 per cent to $501,379 compared to the previous month.
But Wellington and Otago were still enjoying strong runs. In the capital, asking prices appeared to pause for breath, rising only 1.1 per cent to $647,190, but it was the city’s highest level since the website started collecting data 11 years ago..
New listings in Wellington were at their lowest monthly level since records began and the total number of houses for sale were at an all-time low.
‘‘The relatively modest increase in asking prices in a tight market does offer opportunities for several scenarios, whether that’s to sell and buy in the same market, or to sell and move to another region within commuting distance, such as the Wairarapa,’’ Taylor said.
Price rises in Otago were similarly modest, but they were also a record $418,143, up 2.2 per cent on the previous month. New listings were down by nearly a quarter on year-ago levels.