Alistair Helm

Through the last 2 quarters of 2011 the rate of property sales in NZ continued to grow; reaching a 22% year-on-year increase in the final quarter, whilst at the same time total new listings were down 1%.

This is the summary of the Quarterly Property Pulse complied from Realestate.co.nz listings data and REINZ sales data. The chart below details the year-on-year growth or decline for each 3 month period through the whole of 2010 and 2011.

Around the country the 19 regions show some degree of variations as summarised in the specific chart for each region.

It seems a very suitable headline for the advertising of a church for sale just outside Oamaru. This historic church at Awamoko is up for sale and could well be the answer to your prayers or maybe not!

There are currently 9 churches for sale around NZ.

View Churches for sale in NZ in a full screen map

Some grander than others, they are spread around the country and range from the private chapel as part of this homestead in Lawrence in Otago to what must be the most striking church on offer – this Presbyterian church in Roslyn, Dunedin.

Buying a church though can have its risks and complications. This iconic Devonport church when put up for sale late last year encountered a stumbling block in the sale process with the discovery of unmarked graves. This matter has now been resolved with the separate sale of just the building, however it does naturally provide a challenge when dealing with such buildings.

The appeal of these magnificent properties is undeniable – they represent impressive collections of architectural features, extensive use of native timbers crafted into majestic structures that can be skillfully designed into stunning homes for future generations and thereby secure the heritage value of these buildings.

However renovations of churches are not without there challenges – a number of such examples have been sighted on the UK series of Grand Designs over the years – many take a number of years to complete – with some costing more than financial burden.

To those that are strong willed and relish a project then buying a church as a renovation project may well just be the answer to their prayers!

To complement the full NZ Property Report for January we have from this month started a regular interview with Bernard Hickey of Interest.co.nz covering all the key salient points of the report. This video format provides what we hope will be an easily consumed summary of the report with a professional and authoritative commentator of the market in Bernard.

The video is provided for viewing here and is also featured in a detailed summary of the NZ Property Report on Interest.co.nz.

The January 2012 NZ Property Report published by Realestate.co.nz provides an insight into the state of the New Zealand property market as measured by the supply side of the property market over the month of January. The key measures of the market analysed in the report are the number of new listings, the asking price expectation for those new listings and the level of inventory of unsold houses on the market at this time. The report is compiled from data captured by the website and represents close to 95% of all property movements in the NZ market as managed by licensed real estate agents.

A full print version of the NZ Property Report – January 2012 is published below and is available for download (1.5MB) and distribution.

Summary of the market – January 2012

The new calendar year starts with low levels of inventory of properties for sale on the market which is matched by a sluggish flow of new listings, which is then meeting a rising demand in the rate of sale which is up 22% for the past 3m months as compared to the same period last year. This scenario is most extreme in the 3 key regions of Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury which this rise in sales has driven the inventory levels to the lowest levels of the past 4 years – spanning a period when the property market has seen very lackluster activity.

Historically the supply side of the property market tends to lag the demand side as measured by sales and it is likely that the coming two months of February and March will see heightened activity in new listings as the property market hits the peak of activity over these summer months.

The data for this month’s report and going forward all future reports reflects the seasonally adjusted data for asking price expectation and inventory. The seasonal adjusted data better presents the true trends in these key metrics as it removes the inherent seasonality of the property market. The computation of this seasonally adjusted data is provided with the assistance of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) and uses a X12 ARIMA methodology to calculate seasonally adjusted data.

Asking Price

The truncated mean asking price of $417,740 for all new listings in January now calculated on a seasonally adjusted basis fell 0.5% from December. The past 3 months has seen a progressive easing from the peak in October of $425,936 – an adjustment of 2%.

Despite this recent fall the long term trend is showing an increasing asking price albeit at a rate of just 1% per year.

New Listings

The level of new listings coming onto the market in January fell on a seasonally adjusted basis by a significant 12%. A total of 8,542 new listings came onto the market representing a very modest 3% year-on-year rise.

The continuing trend of the past 12 months is to a lower level of new listings – the past 12 months has seen just under 125,000 new listing as compared to 137,000 in the prior 12 month period.

Inventory

The level of unsold houses on the market at the end of January was up slightly as compared to December at 46,967 as measured on a seasonally adjusted basis. This total includes houses, apartments and lifestyle properties on the market. However as the rate of sale has picked up over the past 3 months leading up to the end of 2011, the inventory as measured in weeks of equivalent sales has fallen from 37.5 weeks in December to 36.4 weeks in January

Regional Summary – Asking price expectations

The national (seasonally adjusted) truncated mean asking price expectation among sellers eased again in January to $417,740.

Despite this national easing in asking price there were just 5 regions across the country that reported a fall in seasonally adjusted asking price. Most noticeable was the Central Otago/Queenstown Lakes and Nelson region which both showed double digit falls. Against this backdrop all of the price rises were of a smaller scale and reflect in the other 14 regions.

Auckland, the largest region of the country saw asking price fall by 1% to $540,187 – a consecutive 3 month fall since the peak of October 2011 at $560,327. Wellington asking price rose 2.9% to $444,900 and Canterbury up 0.6% to $374,123 – this latest asking price is fast approaching the peak of $374,952 last seen in January 2008.

Regional Summary – Listings

New listings movement across the country between December and January was in most regions fairly modest. There were 6 regions from the 19 that showed falls with Gisborne and the Wairarapa showing the biggest falls 21% and 20% respectively. Both of these regions have been experiencing high levels of inventory and this market reaction may well edge them back towards a more balanced market.

In contrast across the 13 regions that saw increases most saw modest single digit growths.

The Taranaki and Central Otago/ Queenstown Lakes both showed significant double digit growth in listings – the latter being a region which is beginning to see a buyers’ market emerging as inventory continues to rise.

Regional Summary – Inventory

The inventory of unsold homes on the market tightened again in January slipping down to 36 weeks of equivalent sales nationally. These figures now reflect seasonally adjusted data.

The majority of regions still favour sellers – 9 of the 19 are seen as sellers markets, with just 3 regions being categorized as buyers markets – Gisborne, Wairarapa and Central Otago/Queenstown Lakes .

The physical inventory of property on the market as measured on a seasonally adjusted basis is the lowest for the month of January since 2007 and as such represents a clear view of the tightness of the market. The market for the coming months will be very interesting to watch as transaction levels growing as the market hits the peak period of February and March.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle property listings in January at 634 listings was the second lowest month of the past 5 years – only marginally beaten by July of last year with 628. This level of new listings represented a 25% fall from December and a 13% fall from January last year. On a seasonally adjusted basis listings recorded a 34% decline from December.

The truncated mean asking price for lifestyle properties rose 13% in the month of January to $620,831 and represented a 15% year on year growth. Peak prices were seen in both Canterbury ($661,237) and the West Coast ($553,375).

Apartments

New listings for apartments fell to their lowest level in the past 5 years in January that despite a record low in December. Just 286 apartments coming onto the market, this reflected a 21% year on year fall. The truncated mean asking price of $349,736 was down 3% from January last year and 12% down on December.

The Auckland market which dominates the apartment market saw a record low level of new apartment listings with just 179 new listings in January which was down 9% on prior month and down 25% down on last year. The asking price was $314,757 which was down 8% on last year and 13% down from December.

Notes:

Truncated mean

The monthly asking price for new listings presented in this report utilises the measure of ‘truncated mean’. This measure is judged to be a more accurate measure of the market price than average price as it statistically removes the extremes that exist within any property market that can so easily introduce a skew to traditional average price figures.

The truncated mean used in this report removes the upper 10% and the lower 10% of listings in each data set. An average or mean of the balance of listings is then calculated.

Methodology

With the largest database of properties for sale in NZ, realestate.co.nz is uniquely placed to immediately identify any changes in the marketplace. The realestate.co.nz NZ Property Report is compiled from new listings coming onto the market from the more than 1,000 licensed real estate offices across NZ, representing more than 95% of all offices.

With an average monthly level of over 10,000 new listings, the realestate.co.nz NZ Property Report provides the largest monthly sample report on the residential property market, as well as a more timely view of the property market than any other property report. The data is collated and analysed at the close of each month, and the Report is compiled for the 1st day of the following month. This provides a feedback mechanism as to the immediate state of the market, well in advance of sales statistics, which by the very nature of the selling process can reflect activity with a lag of between 2 and 4 months.

In analysing the details of the 8,542 new listings in the month of November, a total of 292 listings have been excluded due to anomalies. The land area of the property defines the categorisation of Lifestyle property. The criterion is a property having in excess of 0.3 hectares and being situated outside metropolitan areas.

Seasonally adjustment

The core data for the NZ Property Report is seasonally adjusted to better represent the core underlying trend of the property market in NZ. In preparing this seasonally adjusted data Realestate.co.nz is grateful for the assistance of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) who use an X12 ARIMA methodology to calculate seasonally adjusted data.

Background to Realestate.co.nz

Realestate.co.nz is the official website company of the real estate industry of New Zealand, it is an industry owned web business providing online marketing services to the real estate industry. The shareholders in the business comprise the REINZ (50%) and six of the largest real estate companies (50%).

The business operates a portfolio of websites all focused to specialist sectors of the real estate market:

Realestate.co.nz is the heart of the business and is focused to the residential property market. It features the most comprehensive selection of property for sale and rent across NZ. The website attracts a significant monthly audience of over 400,000 unique browsers, with over 110,000 of those visiting from countries outside of NZ.

nzFarms is a specialist website presenting the most comprehensive selection of farms and agricultural businesses on the market across NZ. At this time it features around 5,000 listings for all types of farms and agricultural land as well as over 11,000 lifestyle properties.

Prime Commercial is a specialist website presenting the most comprehensive selection of commercial property for purchase or lease on the market across NZ. At this time it features over 27,000 listings for all types of properties – retail, commercial, industrial and investment properties.

Prime Business is a specialist website presenting the most comprehensive selection of businesses for sale on the market across NZ. At this time it features over 4,300 listings for all types of businesses – retail, tourism, wholesale as well as franchise opportunities.

Zoodle is a specialist property information website providing very detailed data on all residential properties in NZ. The database comprises over 1.6m properties with detailed specifications, map and local amenities. The site provides online reports for free and for purchase covering valuation and legal information to greatly assist the needs of property buyers and sellers.

The web business of Realestate.co.nz site is the most comprehensive real estate web operation in NZ, currently hosting over 110,000 listings, covering this portfolio of residential property for sale and rent, commercial property for sale and lease, rural properties and farms, as well as businesses for sale. With a subscriber base of over 1,000 offices, the company represents over 95% of all listings from licensed real estate agents in NZ.

The full NZ Property Report for January 2011 can be downloaded here (1.5MB pdf document). Additionally the raw data is accessible here as an Excel spreadsheet enabling anyone to analyse the raw data and establish any trends or observations.

Usage rights are governed under attribution to the source of the data being Realestate.co.nz. The next NZ Property Report for February 2012 will be published on this website on Thursday1st March 2012 at 10am.

The property market in NZ starts 2012 in better shape than it has for the past 5 years. It would not be too optimistic to say that the industry, certainly in terms of volume sales has turned a corner. Some parts turned that corner 6 months ago (notably Auckland) whilst some will take a few more months before witnessing this change.

In the 12 months of 2011 a total of 61, 269 properties were sold across the country as reported by the Real Estate Institute. This represented a modest 9% growth as compared to 2010. The word modest is most appropriate when the volume of sales is viewed against the perspective of the past 20 years.

20011 was much improved from both 2008 and 2010 which represented the lowest sales volumes of the past 20 years, barely struggling to reach half the sales volumes of the peak years of 2002 to 2007.

As ever 20/20 hindsight is a powerful tool and applying it now applies a clearer view on those heady days and reflect that this period was a bubble – one unlikely to be repeated for many years, if ever again.

What drove that bubble and created that frenetic pace of market activity?

A number of factors were conspicuous: the rise in investor market activity as the NZ economy grew through global growth and strong immigration, the banks were certainly relaxed about deposit requirements and other investment options showed far less appeal or tax or leverage advantage. That convergence of events lead to a virtuous cycle (depending on your perspective as many would argue a fateful and perilous cycle), whereby those on the treadmill of property ownership felt richer as asset values as a surrogate of property prices grew at a heady 10+% a year rate.

The important thing to see is that if this heady period is ignored as an aberration, the current sales levels still sits well below the levels of the market through the 1990′s. This is the validation to the proposition that the industry has turned a corner. Average annual sales through 1993 to 2001 was 78,000 a year – that means the current year up 9% vs 2010 is still down 22% from the average of the 90’s.

This perspective is seen even clearer when property sales are matched to the growing population of NZ and the number of houses. It makes logical sense that as the population grows, the housing stock must grow and thereby so must sales as people always need to relocate for the logical need of jobs, lifestyle, financial, schools, family etc.

Over the period from 1993 to 2001 the number of houses in NZ grew from just under 1.2 million to 1.37 million and has continued to grow (even allowing for the depressed construction market of the last 4 years) to around 1.55 million today – that is around 350,000 more houses in NZ today than there were at the beginning of the 90’s. Yet the volume of property sales are 22% less!

This conundrum is best visualised in the chart below which tracks the % of property sales on a moving annual total basis against the total number of properties in NZ.

The chart provides a further validation to the belief that property sales are likely to see growth in the coming years. The current rate of sale is 4% of all properties sold per year. The long term average for the past 20 years is 6%, during the 90’s the rate was 6.2%.

If the rate of sale were to return to the 90’s levels we would see a 56% rise in sales to 95,000. If we only saw a rise to the lowest point of the 90’s at 4.7% we would still see a rise in sales of 73,000 a rise of 19%.

The December 2011 NZ Property Report published by Realestate.co.nz provides an insight into the state of the New Zealand property market as measured by the supply side of the property market over the month of December. The key measures of the market analysed in the report are the number of new listings, the asking price expectation for those new listings and the level of inventory of unsold houses on the market at this time. The report is compiled from data captured by the website and represents close to 95% of all property movements in the NZ market as managed by licensed real estate agents.

A full print version of the NZ Property Report – December 2011 is published below and is available for download (1.5MB) and distribution.

Summary of the market – December 2011

The property market saw a further tightening of supply in December, more especially in the 3 major cities where the market remains very firmly as a sellers market. In overall terms the number of new listings coming onto the market in December was considerably lower than expected given the surge in November. This lower level means that inventory levels of property on the market slipped again to remain below the long term average. In December with 47,557 properties on the market the current rate of sale would see these all sell in just over 36 weeks as against the long term average of 41 weeks. This national level has remained below the average for 6 months in a row and with strong sales in November and early December it is anticipated that this will continue into the new year.

The country overall is still balanced between a buyers and a sellers market with the provincial areas seeing less tightness in new listings and available inventory of property on the market.

Asking Price

The truncated mean asking price of $420,109 for all new listings in December eased slightly again from the peak in October of $434,161. On a seasonally adjusted basis the asking price actually rose 0.4%.

The long term trend as seen in the chart has been a steady increase in asking price over the past 3 years – the seasonal trend each year tends to see asking prices rise through from mid winter to October before falling back.

New Listings

The level of new listings coming onto the market in December fell on a seasonally adjusted basis by 2%. A total of 8,732 new listings came onto the market representing a 2% year-on-year fall.

For the calendar year of 2011 a total of 124,748 new listings came onto the market as compared to 138,789 for calendar year 2010 – a fall of 10%. By comparison the prior years stats were 2007: 177,529; 2008: 163,488; 2009: 135,416. So as compared to the peak of the market on 2007 listings are down 30%.

Inventory

The level of unsold houses on the market at the end of December slipped lower in somewhat of an unexpected trend. At the end of the month there were 47,557 houses, apartments and lifestyle properties on the market down from the 48,647 in November and down significantly from 53,077 a year ago. This current level of inventory represents 36.7 weeks of equivalent sales.

Regional Summary – Asking price expectations

The national truncated mean asking price expectation among sellers eased again in November to $420,109. This price trend has been seen for each of the past 4 years as rising asking prices begin to ease as the summer approaches.

Across the 19 regions the view is mixed with 10 regions showing an increase in asking prices as measured against the recent 3 month average. There were 4 regions showing significant rises n asking prices of over 5% – Central North Island, Nelson, Central Otago / Queenstown Lakes and West Coast.

Amongst the 9 regions showing a fall in asking price there were 6 regions where the falls were modest (between 1% and 5%) – Coromandel, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Canterbury, Otago and Southland. The largest fall in asking price in the month was in the Wairarapa which saw asking price fall by 11% vs. December last year.

Regional Summary – Listings

New listings fell across most of the country in December with just 6 of the 19 regions seeing any increase on a year-on-year basis. The biggest falls was seen in the Wairarapa and the Coromandel which was down 26% with just 204 new listings, this follows a 29% year-on-year decline in November.

Contrasting these regions were the Central North Island reporting 35% increase, The other regions reporting increases all were below 20% increase indicating the low levels of new listings coming onto the market over recent months as compared to prior years.

The remainder of the country seems to reflect a balance with 3 regions reporting barely changed levels of new listings which would indicate a balance between buyers and sellers.

Regional Summary – Inventory

The inventory of unsold homes on the market eased slightly this month following a fall first seen last month. The expectations from October was to have seen some rise over the summer but with keen buying activity to the rise in new listings in November did not result in building inventory – quite the reverse.

Across the country there were a total of 9 regions where the advantage is to sellers. Of these the 7 regions of Auckland, Manawatu/Wanganui, Canterbury, West Coast, Central North Island and the Waikato remain very much in strong sellers markets.

There are however still 5 regions (Central Otago / Queenstown Lakes, Wairarapa, Southland, Taranaki and Gisborne) were the market is certainly favouring buyers with high levels of inventory set against long term average.

The market is now firmly in the peak summer season and with the more balanced market in terms of inventory of unsold properties on the market the options seem more open for both active buyers and sellers.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle property listings fell back in December with 845 listings in the month, this represented a 1.5% seasonally adjusted fall and was down 9% on the same month last year. The truncated mean asking price at $550,245 was up 2% from last year but down 8% down on the recent 3 month average.

Across the country strength in new listings was seen in Otago (33, up 120% Yr. on Yr.) and the West Coast (25, up 108% Yr. on Yr.). Whilst the Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay and Gisborne all saw year on year falls of over 30%.

Apartments

New listings for apartments fell to their lowest level in the past 4 years in December with just 346 apartments coming onto the market, this reflected a 35% from November and a 23% fall on last year. The truncated mean asking price of $396,501 was up 7% from prior month, but down 14% as compared to last year.

The Auckland market which dominates the apartment market saw a record low level of new apartment listings with just 196 new listings in December which was down 44% on prior month and down 27% down on last year. The asking price was $360,522 which was down 25% on last year but 2% up from November.

Notes:

Truncated mean

The monthly asking price for new listings presented in this report utilises the measure of ‘truncated mean’. This measure is judged to be a more accurate measure of the market price than average price as it statistically removes the extremes that exist within any property market that can so easily introduce a skew to traditional average price figures.

The truncated mean used in this report removes the upper 10% and the lower 10% of listings in each data set. An average or mean of the balance of listings is then calculated.

Methodology

With the largest database of properties for sale in NZ, realestate.co.nz is uniquely placed to immediately identify any changes in the marketplace. The realestate.co.nz NZ Property Report is compiled from new listings coming onto the market from the more than 1,000 licensed real estate offices across NZ, representing more than 95% of all offices.

With an average monthly level of over 10,000 new listings, the realestate.co.nz NZ Property Report provides the largest monthly sample report on the residential property market, as well as a more timely view of the property market than any other property report. The data is collated and analysed at the close of each month, and the Report is compiled for the 1st day of the following month. This provides a feedback mechanism as to the immediate state of the market, well in advance of sales statistics, which by the very nature of the selling process can reflect activity with a lag of between 2 and 4 months.

In analysing the details of the 8,732 new listings in the month of November, a total of 84 listings have been excluded due to anomalies. The land area of the property defines the categorisation of Lifestyle property. The criterion is a property having in excess of 0.3 hectares and being situated outside metropolitan areas.

Background to Realestate.co.nz

Realestate.co.nz is the official website company of the real estate industry of New Zealand, it is an industry owned web business providing online marketing services to the real estate industry. The shareholders in the business comprise the REINZ (50%) and six of the largest real estate companies (50%).

The business operates a portfolio of websites all focused to specialist sectors of the real estate market:

Realestate.co.nz is the heart of the business and is focused to the residential property market. It features the most comprehensive selection of property for sale and rent across NZ. The website attracts a significant monthly audience of over 400,000 unique browsers, with over 110,000 of those visiting from countries outside of NZ.

nzFarms is a specialist website presenting the most comprehensive selection of farms and agricultural businesses on the market across NZ. At this time it features around 5,000 listings for all types of farms and agricultural land as well as over 11,000 lifestyle properties.

Prime Commercial is a specialist website presenting the most comprehensive selection of commercial property for purchase or lease on the market across NZ. At this time it features over 27,000 listings for all types of properties – retail, commercial, industrial and investment properties.

Prime Business is a specialist website presenting the most comprehensive selection of businesses for sale on the market across NZ. At this time it features over 4,300 listings for all types of businesses – retail, tourism, wholesale as well as franchise opportunities.

Zoodle is a specialist property information website providing very detailed data on all residential properties in NZ. The database comprises over 1.6m properties with detailed specifications, map and local amenities. The site provides online reports for free and for purchase covering valuation and legal information to greatly assist the needs of property buyers and sellers.

The web business of Realestate.co.nz site is the most comprehensive real estate web operation in NZ, currently hosting over 110,000 listings, covering this portfolio of residential property for sale and rent, commercial property for sale and lease, rural properties and farms, as well as businesses for sale. With a subscriber base of over 1,000 offices, the company represents over 95% of all listings from licensed real estate agents in NZ.

The full NZ Property Report for December 2011 can be downloaded here (1.5MB pdf document). Additionally the raw data is accessible here as an Excel spreadsheet enabling anyone to analyse the raw data and establish any trends or observations.

Usage rights are governed under attribution to the source of the data being Realestate.co.nz. The next NZ Property Report for January 2012 will be published on this website on Wednesday 1st February 2012 at 10am.

The state of the property market can be assessed by keeping a close eye on the number of properties being marketed for Auction. When you spot more and more of the For Sale street signs emblazened with “Auction” you can safely bet that the property market is heating up.

This view is certainly articulated in the article today titled “Auckland house auctions hit high“. Based on sales data supplied by the Real Estate Institute (REINZ) the number of properties sold in November across the country as Auctions was the highest ever at more than 25%. Looking specifically at the Auckland market Barfoot & Thompson November reported that around 40% of it’s current listings are being for sale by auction.

These reported statistics got me interested as we have in the past reported on the number of listings coming onto the market and specifically on the market across our comprehensive database. Back in August we reported that Auctions across the whole country had risen to a peak in June as representing 13% of all new listings, in Auckland that figure was even higher with over 20% of all new listings being for Auction properties for sale. These figures though are lower than the respective REINZ or Barfoot & Thompson figures.

Looking at the latest data for the month of November we saw 1,206 new listings of Auctions of properties come onto the market across NZ, this represented 9% of all new listings. In Auckland the number was 790 which represented over 17% – a new record, so the data is consistent.

In tracking the data over the past 4 years what is very interesting is that Auctions as a form of marketing rises as available inventory falls (as it does when the market picks up) and similarly falls as inventory rises. This is represented in the chart below, tracking new listings of Auctions per month as a % of all listings (blue bars) against the available stock on the market as measured as equivalent weeks sales as we track for the NZ Property Report.

In Auckland the same trend is evident, and more pronounced.

So it is clear that Auction marketing is a bellwether of the state of the market, which is not that surprising as vendors are more keen to pitch their property to a more active market when there is more demand from active buyers and see the open auction environment ensure that transparency works for them to maximise property demand lead pricing.

Point of Note

The new realestate.co.nz website has a very useful feature which allows you search by pricing type (Auction / Negotiation / Tender / POA / Offers / Display Price). As at this time as we head into Christmas there are 713 properties being marketed on the website as Auctions,  179 properties being marketed on the website as Tenders, and  37,736 properties being marketed with a price on the website /

Each month we publish a factsheet for each region of the country as well as a national report to provide an insight to the key numbers that detail the health of the property market across the country.

These reports for the month of November cover all 16 provincial regions as well as reports covering the 3 main metropolitan regions of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The Auckland report is divided up into each of the main metro areas (North Shore, Waitakere, Manukau as well as Auckland City).

Each factsheet provides the key numbers in table and chart form using the key statistics from the Real Estate Institute of NZ and Realestate.co.nz. This provides the number of property sales in the month, the median sales price for those property sales, the inventory of unsold properties on the market, as well as the number and the asking price expectation of new listings brought onto the market in the month.

Metropolitan Areas

Auckland City

North Shore

Waitakere

Manukau

Wellington

Chistchurch

Provincial Areas

Northland

Coromandel

Waikato

Bay of Plenty

Central North Island

Hawkes Bay

Gisborne

Taranaki

Manawatu / Wanganui

Wairarapa

Nelson

Marlborough

West Coast

Otago

Queenstown Lakes

Southland

National Property Pulse

The national NZ property pulse factsheet for November 2011 is published using data from Realestate.co.nz and REINZ (Real Estate Institute of NZ).

Property sales across the country totalled 6,008 in the month showed a strong rise on a seasonally adjusted basis in November and a significant 17% rise as compared to November 2010. The inventory of unsold houses on the market at 38 weeks of equivalent sales continues to sit below the long-term average of 41 weeks indicating that the market in overall terms is favouring sellers, although this bias is primarily being seen in the metro areas of Auckland and Christchurch.

The stratified mean sales price for property sales across the country at $372,225 is up 3% as compared to a year ago, and continues to show a steady rise over the past year and is now at a 3 year high. The asking price expectation of new listings slipped slightly from the peak seen in October; for the month of November the asking price was $425,956, which is 2% up as compared to a year ago.

The level of new listings coming onto the market in November at 13,369 showed a significant rise from October and is 3% up on a year ago.

The Northland region property pulse factsheet for November 2011 is published using data from Realestate.co.nz and REINZ (Real Estate Institute of NZ).

Property sales in Northland at 136 in the month increased on a seasonally adjusted basis in November and is up 26% as compared to a year ago. The inventory of unsold houses on the market at 136 weeks has risen after falling to a low of 128 weeks. It is now just back above the long-term average of 130 weeks of equivalent sales.

Median sales price for property sales in Northland at $305,000 is down 2% as compared to a year ago. The recent trend has been a continued decline over the prior 6 months although the past month has seen a slight pick-up. The asking price expectation of new listings fell in November to $365,293, an 8% fall from the asking price in November last year.

The level of new listings coming onto the market in November at 713 was up significantly from October and up 46% as compared to a year ago.

You should have asked Bernard what his latest house price prediction is. Didn’t he predict a 30% house price crash by about now then later revise it down to 15%?

Agreed Alistair that it is a sellers market and in Auckland it is one of the strongest sellers market I have ever seen particularly in the Grey Lynn, Westmere, Pt Chevalier and Sandringham area. We are selling homes for well above what they last sold for in 2006 or 2007 so the previous peak has been well and truly exceeded.

One reason people will not list is that potential sellers in Auckland expect the market to rise around 8% to 10% in Auckland during 2012 so there is no rush to sell, particularly while they cannot find a replacement house. They do not want to sell and then be left out of the market and the other major factor is that if they sell they may not be able to find a temporary rental property.

At a rate of increase of 8% per year house prices would double within 9 years and despite the recent global financial crisis of 2008/2009 they have almost doubled from December 2001 to December 2011 according to REINZ the Auckland median house price increased from $255,000 to $484,375 in that period.

With a population increase predicted for Auckland from 1.5 million to 2 million over the next 20 years, building consents at an all time low, plus a Council that is totally set on constraining residential zoning to the existing boundaries, rental investors will also be more likely to retain their properties and enjoy strong rent and price growth.

So listings are very tight but on the buyer side we have been swamped with open home visitors, emails and texts about properties and enquiries asking when will we have more new listings available.

If we could get another 30 or 40 bungalows, villas and ex states in the Pt Chevalier, Grey Lynn and Westmere areas we could easily sell them all in February as we have hundreds of cashed up unconditional buyers ready to make offers!

Anything that we listed at our Pt Chevalier and Grey Lynn offices in the first 3 weeks of January sold within a week with over 100 people through each listing, multiple offers presented and sales well in excess of the 2011 CV figures.

During January we conducted the lowest level of appraisals that we can remember for any January since 1999. Usually homes that will launch in February would have been appraised in January and all the photography and marketing set up by now so I suspect that the low level of new listings will be a problem that will be with us for the remainder of the summer.

Locally we have had the launch of new listings delayed as sellers could not complete the work on their properties during the dismal weather over the holiday period in Auckland and most of these properties will now not launch until mid February.

On the buyer side we have been swamped with open home visitors, emails and texts about properties and enquiries asking when will we have more new listings available.

If we could get another 30 or 40 bungalows, villas and ex states in the Pt Chevalier, Grey Lynn and Westmere areas we could easily sell them all in February as we have hundreds of cashed up unconditional buyers ready to make offers!

2012 should be a stellar year for the real estate market in Auckland City with interest rates likely to remain at low levels and more homes available for sale as prices recover to levels well above the previous peak of 2007. 2011 finished with the best December volume since 2006 and prices in the old Auckland City Council area are well above the previous 2007 peak.

In our own office 2011 was our best year ever and culminated with a frantic week prior to Christmas receiving offers on several properties and finishing the year off on a high note and strong levels of activity continuing into the week between Christmas and New Year with offers received and second looks through homes.

Our first three listings of the 2012 year each had over 100 people through in the week one and all are now SOLD with multiple offers presented at levels well above the 2011CV. We need at least another 20 to 30 Pt Chev, Westmere or Grey Lynn bungalows or villas in the $700,000 to $1,200,000 range ASAP as we have a massive volume of cashed up registered buyers just waiting for us to offer them more new listings.

There year ahead is looking very positive indeed!

Thomas

Thanks for your comment. The data we provide in this report is not “days to sell” as used and reported by REINZ. We report the inventory of the number of properties on the market expressed as a measure of equivalent “weeks of sale”.

The REINZ days to sell is a measure of the average period the properties that were sold in that month were advertised before they sold.

Our data takes the total number of properties on the market at the end of each month and expresses it not in terms of absolute numbers (47,557 properties across NZ) but as a measure of the rate of sale. So for December the fact was that based on the recent 3 months rate of sale (sales per week) it would take (in theory) 36.7 weeks to sell all of those properties. In this way the measure of inventory is given perspective based on rate of sale.

Hope this is clear – please feel free to ask any other questions