NZ property sale volumes remain erratic
High mortgage rates continue to pressure the housing market, contributing to patchy volumes month to month in New Zealand.
CoreLogic New Zealand chief property economist Kelvin Davidson said the weakness in sales just highlights sales activity reaching its second lowest level in about 40 years.
Figures measured across agentled and private transactions show there was a total of 3,169 sales in January.
This is up only two per cent on the same month last year where levels were at 3,108, which marked the slowest start to the year since 1983.
“January’s sluggishness in sales is a timely reminder that the housing market is still facing quite a bit of mortgage rate pressure,” he said.
Despite this, Mr Davidson said there was still clearly a gradual upturn underway, as sales volumes have risen compared to a year earlier in each of the past nine months.
On a 12-month basis, national sales have increased 4.5 per cent to more than 67,000.
This is up from the April trough of less than 62,000 annually, but still well below ‘normal’ levels of 9095,000 per year.
The upwards trend is also reflected in total sales across the main centres (5.0 per cent) and provincial markets (3.6 per cent) over the 12 months to January.
Mr Davidson also suggested that February could see some kind of bounce-back, given that January was perhaps weaker than expected.
“It’ll be interesting to see how sales and listing activity evolves in the next month or so, and how market confidence moves too.
“We suspect the demand would be there to match any additional supply coming on to the market, resulting in an associated rise in agreed sales activity as buyers can see more choice,” he said.