Figures suggest modest housing slowdown

By Jenny Ruth

Tuesday 20th July 2004

The Real Estate Institute figures show national the median house price slipped from $248,000 in May to $243,000 in June.
Institute president Graeme Woodley attributes this decline to the impact of heavy sales of lower priced apartments in Auckland. The median price in Auckland slipped from $339,000 in May to $323,710 in June. However, the number of sales in Auckland also fell from 3,203 in May to 2,940 in June.

Nationally, the number of homes sold fell from 9,416 in May to 8,367 in June. Darren Gibbs, senior economist at Deutsche Bank, says this turnover figure is 13% below the average for the past year but it is still 15% above the average turnover during the past 10 years.

Woodley says the slowdown in sales is due to rising interest rates and the traditional winter slowdown.

"Values are holding up relatively well and, despite the lower level of activity, there doesn't apeaar to be any significant decline in values around the country," he says.

Prices were up in five of the 11 regions in June compared with May, down in five regions, and unchanged in one, Wellington. But compared with June last year, prices rose in all regions.

Compared with a year ago, the national median price is 15.7% higher than in June last year, suggesting that house price inflation is starting to abate - May's price increase on a year earlier was 18.1% while last November's was a whopping 20.5%. Still it remains way above the 2.4% general inflation rate in the year ended June.

The average days it takes to sell a house rose to 31 days in June from 30 days in May and from only 23 days in December last year - the historic average is 41 days, Gibbs says.

"Overall, we think the residential property market is fairing pretty well for this time of the year and taking into account the very significant increases over the last two years," Woodley says.

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