Auckland property market carries on while other regions holiday

Auckland property market carries on while other regions holiday

Auckland* continued to provide potential buyers with plenty of new listings in December while other regions went into a typical Christmas listings slowdown.

Real-time market statistics from realestate.co.nz show that although nationally the new listings figure was down 5.1 per cent when compared with December 2015, Auckland saw a healthy increase in new stock of 12.9 per cent. All other major population centres followed the national trend with decreases – Waikato down 13.8 per cent, Bay of Plenty down 12.5 per cent, Wellington down 20.2 per cent, Canterbury down 25.5 per cent and Otago down 9 per cent.

“Clearly there is still strong interest in the Auckland property market with many people still thinking it is a good time to sell and not being influenced by the festive season,” says realestate.co.nz CEO Brendon Skipper.

The total number of properties for sale in Auckland was up 18.4 per cent compared with December 2015. But in all other regions of the country, total stock was down.

 

 

Asking prices still on the move

Whilst the national average asking price inched up further to a new all-time high of $617,847, there were several variations in the asking price around New Zealand.

The average asking price in Auckland went up marginally in December compared with the previous month – just under $950,000, at $949,898.

Gisborne went up 12 per cent to $328,107 while neighbouring Hawke’s Bay went off the boil, down nearly 8 per cent to $373,169. Other upward movers were Southland which gained 8.2 per cent to $277,476, and Coromandel, up nearly 7 per cent at $684,927.

The biggest drop came in the Marlborough region, down nearly 9 per cent to $435,297.

“Overall, there are more regions going up in asking price than down, and the trend appears to be towards higher prices, albeit at a slowing rate” says Brendon Skipper.

 

Tightening of stock in most of the major centres

In terms of inventory, Auckland is again against the trend in December. Auckland has gone up from 14 weeks to 15 weeks – the only one of the main centres to show an increase in this measure.

The customary tight market supply in Wellington was exemplified with inventory of listings  dropping from eight weeks to six weeks. In Waikato the measure went down from 13 weeks to 12 weeks, and in Canterbury the figure dropped from 18 weeks to 16 weeks. Inventory of listings tells us if there were no new properties to come onto the market as of today, theoretically there would be no properties left for sale in these regions within 6, 12 and 16 weeks respectively.  

 

*Data is pulled on the penultimate day of December for early release