Property Report – January 2014

The new calendar year starts with a healthy flow of new listings, which will help to meet the rising demand for property that historically is seen in the coming two months of February, and March. In total January had 9,267 new properties come on the market, up 5% from the same time last year. This increase in new listings was apparent across most of New Zealand, with 13 of our 19 regions seeing an increase in listings from January last year.

Early indications of higher buyer demand are already being seen by Realestate.co.nz, website traffic in January hit record levels, with over 1.6 million visits to the Realestate.co.nz sites (Source – Google Analytics). It will be interesting to see how this increase in site traffic translates into sales in the coming months.

Asking prices of new listings rebounded in January, with the national (seasonally adjusted) mean reaching $476,797, just short of the record asking price seen in October last year of $482,063. Record high asking prices were seen in Canterbury ($449,149 – up 11.5% Year on Year) and Otago ($304,720 – up 1.6% year on year).

Asking Price

The seasonally adjusted truncated mean asking price for listings recovered from the fall seen in December, up  5.6% to $476,797 (from December), and represents a 8% growth on January 2013.

The trend seen in the chart opposite, continues to show strenght in seller expectation, on the back of healthy listings, and a strong demand for homes across New Zealand.

Regional Summary – Asking price expectations

National asking prices recovered in January to $476,797 (Seasonally Adjusted Truncated Mean) from the fall seen in December, nearing record asking prices recorded in October 2013.

Record high asking prices were seen in 2 regions in New Zealand; Canterbury, where the average asking price reached a new high of $449,149 (up 11.5% on January 2013); and Otago, where asking prices reached $304,720 (up 1.6% on January 2013).

In the other main centers, both Auckland and Wellington reported an increase in average asking prices from last month, Auckland rose by 1% to $663,372, and Wellington rose 4.2% to $463,912. Both sit close to the record asking prices set in their respective regions in October 2013.

In total 8 regions saw asking price increases, with 3 regions reporting asking price increases greater than 5%. Coromandel reported the largest increase, up 28.7% from December to $493,934, followed by Waikato, which rose by 9% to $381,413.

Of the 11 regions witnessing asking price falls there were 4 that reported a falls greater than 5%, the most significant falls were recorded in Central Otago / Lakes, Wairarapa, Taranaki, and Hawkes Bay. Central Otago / Lakes fell by 9.2% to $619,516, Wairarapa fell 7.2% to $265,828, Taranaki fell 5.7% to 325,241, and Hawkes Bay fell 5.5% to $331,032.

Regional Summary – Listings

New listings rose across most of the country in January, with 13 of the 19 regions seeing an increase in listings on a year-on-year basis.

Of the 13 regions that reported higher new listings than January last year the most significant increase in listings was seen in Coromandel, rising 39.8%, Central North Island, which rose by 29%, and Waikato, where listings were up 25% year on year.

Record low numbers of new listings were seen in Gisborne – which had just 52 new homes listed in January.

There were 6 regions reporting year on year decreases with Gisborne reporting the biggest decrease of listings (down 34.2%).

In the main centers, Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury saw an increase in new listings. Auckland reported 2,723 new listings, up 1.2% from January 2013, Wellington reported 836 new listings, up 5% from last year, and Canterbury, saw a 8% rise in listings, with 1,082 new listings coming on the market.

Regional Summary – Inventory

The level of unsold houses on the market at the end of January (40,219) was up, when compared to December (38,804). The inventory as measured in terms of equivalent weeks of sales rose in January to 26.8 weeks, recovering to levels not seen since April last year

While this increase in the last month was seen in 13 of the 19 NZ regions, the market remains firmly a seller’s market, and inventory on the market remains well below the long-term average of 37 weeks of equivalent sales.

For Media Enquiries, please contact:

Paul McKenzie, National Marketing Manager, Realestate.co.nz | +64 21 618 537

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 from licensed real estate agents, 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 97% 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.

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 five 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. The website attracts a significant monthly audience of over 615,000 unique browsers (Source: Google Analytics), with over 130,000 of those visiting from countries outside of NZ. In addition Realestate.co.nz receives over 30% of all traffic to property listings from mobile devices, including their iPhone and Android applications. To date these applications have been downloaded by over 190,000 users making the app the most popular property app in 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 3,000 listings for all types of farms and agricultural land as well as over 10,000 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 25,000 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 3,500 listings for all types of businesses – retail, tourism, wholesale as well as franchise opportunities.

Realestate.co.nz is the official online property listing website of the New Zealand real estate industry, currently hosting over 100,000 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 97% of all listings from licensed real estate agents in NZ. The full NZ Property Report for January 2014 can be downloaded here (800kb 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 2014 will be published on this website on 1st March 2014 at 11am.

By Paul McKenzie, Marketing Manager, Realestate.co.nz

via:http://unconditional.co.nz/blog/property-report-january-2014/