NZ house prices hit new median high in June

Tuesday 10th July 2012

New Zealand house sales rose and the median price reached a new record high in June on the continued strength of the Auckland and Christchurch property markets, according to Real Estate Institute figures.

The number of sales rose 17.3 percent to 6,135 in June, compared to the same month a year ago.

The national median sale price rose by 3.3 percent to $372,000, which is $2,000 above the previous record set in March. Auckland maintained its record $500,000 medium sale price set last month. The REINZ stratified house price, which irons out peaks and troughs in pricing information, rose 5.3 percent to 3,400.8 from a year earlier.

"Keen buyer interest in Auckland and Christchurch - which together make up about half of national activity - drove the New Zealand real estate market to new highs in June and a new record median price," Helen O'Sullivan, chief executive, said in a statement.

"The overall pattern for the rest of New Zealand shows improvement in sales volumes, with prices on the whole steady rather than up." "The constraint across the country appears to be shortage of properties available to meet buyer demand," O'Sullivan said.

"This is most acute in Auckland, where new home building is still sluggish, and in Christchurch where the earthquake recovery is slowly getting under way." O'Sullivan warned that the market's apparent strength is still far off the boom years in the mid to late noughties.

"Buyers and sellers lost confidence during the global financial crisis and in that context the current market should be seen as recovering rather than booming," she said. The number of sales in Auckland climbed 15.7 compared to a year earlier, while the medium sale price rose 8.5 percent.

Canterbury sales surged 56 percent and the medium price rose 8.3 percent. Waikato/Bay of Plenty bucked the trend with sales falling 6.2 percent, while Manawatu/Wanganui sales were down 8.5 percent.

REINZ said the national median time to sell improved by one day to 37 in June, compared to May. That's up by seven days on the same month a year earlier. Over the past five years the median days to sell has average at 41 days across New Zealand.

Last week, Barfoot & Thompson, which sells about one in three Auckland residential properties, said the Auckland housing market had its strongest June in five years, with the average sale price hitting a record-high.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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