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Archive for the ‘Buying / Selling a home’ Category

2

NZ Property Report – March 2013

Posted on: April 6th, 2013 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, NZ Property Report

March 2013 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 March. 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 97% of all property movements in the NZ market as managed by licensed real estate agents.

A full print version of the NZ Property Report – March 2013 is published below and is available for download (1.2MB) and distribution.

Summary of the market – March 2013

Property market continues to favour sellers, with asking prices near record levels.

 

Nationally the property market saw some stabilisation in March, with a mean asking price of $444,883, a small increase of 0.3% on February, but a growth of 4% on the same time last year, close to the $446,277 record set in November 2012. The average asking price (seasonally adjusted truncated mean) in both Auckland and Canterbury climbed further in March, reaching their 2nd highest recorded figures of $610,628, and 438,298 respectively.

The number of new listings fell slightly to 12,732, down 3% on February and down 4% year on year. However, the decrease in new listings was particularly apparent in the major centres, where the number of new listings in the main centres is not keeping up with demand, Wellington and Canterbury experiencing falls of 9.9% and 8.6% respectively from the same time last year, with Auckland’s figure falling by 4.6%.

The 12,732 new listings that came to market in March did little to ease the record low in inventory seen last month. Inventory – measured by weeks of equivalent sales – settled at 27 weeks. While this is a marginal increase on last month’s 26.2 weeks, it is still 20% less than March 2012, and well down on the long term average of 39 weeks.

 

Asking Price

 

The seasonally adjusted truncated mean asking price for listings in March rose by 0.3% to $444,883. It represents a 4% year-on-year growth in the asking price as compared to March last year, and is the close to the National asking price record of $446,227 which was set is November last year.

The trend as seen in the chart opposite, continues to show strength in seller expectation, on the back of low listings, and strong demand in the main centers

 

New Listings

The level of new listings coming onto the market in March fell 3% from February, to a total of 12,732. This represents a fall of 4% from March last year.

On a 12 month moving average basis a total of 131,703 new listings have come to the market since April 2012, as compared to 128,072 in the prior 12 month period, a slight rise of 2.8%. This compares to REINZ reported sales, which are up 18.1% on the same 12 month comparable basis.

 

Inventory

 

The level of unsold houses on the market at the end of March (43,930) was down slightly, when compared to February (44,698). The inventory as measured in terms of equivalent weeks of sales rose in March to 27 weeks, remaining well below the long-term average of 39 weeks. 

The market remains firmly a seller’s market; with 13 of the 19 NZ regions showing inventory levels that are well below long term averages. Both Auckland and Canterbury are witnessing the highest extent of this. Auckland is 53% below its long term average, and Canterbury is 45% below its long term average.

 

Regional Summary – Asking price expectations

The national asking price expectation among sellers rose by just 0.3% in March to $444,883, just below the high set in November 2012 of $446,277 (seasonally adjusted truncated mean).

The main centers – asking prices in Auckland, and Canterbury remained strong in March, each reporting asking prices close to the record highs seen in October 2012. Auckland sellers remained confident with an asking price of $610,628 (up 9.2% on last year), and Canterbury rose 2% from February to $413,403 (up 7.8% on last year).

In total 8 regions reported asking price increases from February, the most significant rises was seen in the Hawkes Bay region, up 5.1% to an asking price of $354,225. Of the 11 regions witnessing asking price falls on a seasonally adjusted basis there were three that reported a fall of greater than 5%, Central Otago / Lakes fell by 5.8% from the record set last month to $604,824, Gisborne fell 9.5% to $287,097, and Takanaki witnessed the largest drop, falling by 14.1% to $282,019.

 

Regional Summary – Listings

 

New listings fell across most of the country in March with just 5 of the 19 regions seeing an increase on a year-on-year basis.

The most significant drop in listings was seen in Gisborne, falling 19.8%, and Taranaki, which fell by 15.7%

Of the 5 regions reported higher new listings than March last year, just 1 region reported significant year on year increases of over 20%. Coromandel was the region to report the highest increase of 41.7% when compared to March 2012, followed by Otago who saw an increase of 12.7%.

The main cities continue to suffer from low levels of listings. Auckland listings were down 4.6%, Wellington was down 9.9% and Canterbury was down 8.6% year on year in March.

 

Regional Summary – Inventory

 

The 12,732 new listings that came to market in March did little to ease the record low in inventory seen last month. Inventory settled at 27 weeks (weeks of equivalent sales). While this is a marginal increase on last month’s 26.2 weeks, it is still 20% less than March 2012, and well down on the long term average of 39 weeks. 

Just three regions (Gisborne, Taranaki, and West Coast) showed increases in inventory of homes on the market taking them above their respective long-term average. In addition three other regions (Central North Island, Southland, and Wairarapa) sit close to their respective long-term averages.

Market sentiment continues to favour sellers in 13 regions, with the greatest strain being felt in the 8 regions that are marked in darker blue. This includes the main metro areas of Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury, which remain under pressure from low listings as measured against sales activity.

Auckland is 53% below its long term average, and Canterbury is 45% below its long term average.

 

Lifestyle

 

New lifestyle property listings rose across the country in March. A total of 1,081 listings came onto the market, showing an increase of 2.3% when compared to February, but a fall of 6.3% when compared to March last year. The truncated mean asking price for these listings was up by 3.5% as compared to the recent 3-month average to a record high asking price of $689,910 (up 7% when compared to March 2012).

 

Apartments

 

New listings for apartments in March were up 3.2% on a year on year basis, with 544 being brought to the market. The truncated mean asking price of new apartment listings rose 2.4% to $392,443 in March from $383,077 in February, and was also up 7.2% on a year on year basis.

The Auckland apartment market had 369 new listings coming onto the market, up 17.5% when compared to March last year. The truncated mean asking price of new listings in Auckland rose to $380,805 (March) from $380,251 (February). When compared to the recent 3-month average, this represents a rise of 1.4%.

For Media Enquiries, please contact: Paul McKenzie, 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. It features the most comprehensive selection of property for sale and rent across NZ. The website attracts a significant monthly audience of over 500,000 unique browsers, with over 120,000 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 145,000 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 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.

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 97% of all listings from licensed real estate agents in NZ.

The full NZ Property Report for March 2013 can be downloaded here (1.2MB 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 April 2013 will be published on this website on 2nd May 2013 at 10am.

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

2

NZ Property Report – November 2012

Posted on: December 2nd, 2012 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, Market News, NZ Property Report, Property Investing, Regional News

The November 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 November. 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 97% of all property movements in the NZ market as managed by licensed real estate agents.

A full print version of the NZ Property Report – November 2012 is published below and is available for download (1.2MB) and distribution.

Summary of the market – November 2012

Inventory hits 5 year low and adds growing pressure to the property market

The message coming from the property market is that buyers are out and about and are keen to get into the market. This eagerness to buy is matched by the availability of attractive mortgage packages, but is not being met with sufficient supply of new property listings, which is continuing to drive the current sellers market.

Inventory levels across the country remain low and the market remains a firms sellers market across 15 of NZ’s 19 regions. Overall stocks of unsold homes fell to a 5 year low of 28.7 weeks of inventory (long term average = 39 weeks). Auckland was again the most affected by low inventory levels, with stocks of unsold homes falling to a new low of 15.5 weeks of inventory, well below the long term average of 31 weeks.

The REINZ Residential Market Statistics reports strong property sales with 6,640 properties sold in October, up 33% on a year ago, and yet listing flow is not matching with just a 1.5% year on year growth. This is why the inventory supply of the property on the market (as measured by rate of sale) has fallen 29% in the past year.

This confidence on the part of sellers is certainly supported by the rate of sale of property which is being shared by real estate agents in their daily contact with the public, and can also be seen in traffic to Realestate.co.nz which has seen an increase this year of 40%, with over 1,400,000 monthly visitor sessions across all sites (Google Analytics).

 

Asking Price

The seasonally adjusted truncated mean asking price for listings steadied, rising just 0.2% to high of $446,277 in November.

The trend (as seen in the chart opposite) very clearly shows an accelerating growth in asking price over the recent 12 months (as compared to 2010/11) and shows continued strength in seller expectations.

 

New Listings

The level of new listings coming onto the market in November continued to increase, with 13,571 listings in the month – up from 12,688 in October (7% increase). However listings were only slightly up by 1.5% on November last year.

On a 12 month moving total basis the number of new listings that have come onto the market in the last year totals 132,493, as compared to 124,940 in the prior 12-month period, this represents a rise of 6%.

 

Inventory

The level of unsold houses on the market at the end of November (45,228) was up, when compared to October (43,410). The inventory as measured in terms of equivalent weeks of sales fell to a 5 year low last month to 28.7 weeks last month. This fall was witnessed across 15 of the 19 regions.

With the rising rate of property sales, the inventory on the market has seen a significant drop over the last 12 months pushing it well below the long-term average of 39 weeks of equivalent sales.

 

Regional Summary – Asking price expectations

The national (seasonally adjusted) truncated mean asking price expectation among sellers rose just 0.2% in November to a new high of $446,277.

In the main centers, Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch all reported a fall in the asking price in November. Auckland fell 2.5% to $596,759, Wellington fell 4.2% to $431,259 and Canterbury fell 2% to $405,913.

In total 10 regions reported asking price increases, and 5 regions saw rises greater than 5%. The most significant rises were seen in the Central North Island, Northland, Manawatu/Wanganui and Southland with Central North Island showing the largest increases, up 6.9% to $369,390. Of the 9 regions witnessing asking price falls on a seasonally adjusted basis there was 3 that reported a falls of greater than 5% with Gisborne falling by 14.4% to $250,866, Hawkes Bay falling by 10.3% to $321,454 and Wairarapa falling 7.3% to $254,194

 

Regional Summary – Listings

Overall new listings increased on a national basis, as seen in the adjacent chart however across the regions there were slightly more regions showing increases than falls.

There were 11 regions reporting year-on-year rises, with significant increases (over 20%) seen in just 2 regions, the largest increases were in Gisborne (25%), and Otago (20%).

7 regions reported lower new listings than November last year with the Central North Island being the region to report the highest fall off of 35.8% when compared to November 2011, Followed by Northland who saw a fall of 21%

 

Regional Summary – Inventory

The inventory of unsold homes on the market tightened significantly in March – Falling to a new low of 28.7 weeks off equivalent sales from 33 weeks (on a seasonally adjusted basis).

Four regions (Southland, West Coast, Coromandel, and Wairarapa) showed increases in inventory of homes on the market taking them above their respective long-term average. In addition one other region (Manawatu / Wanganui) sits close to it’s respective long term average.

Market sentiment now favours sellers in 14 regions, with the greatest strain being felt in the 8 regions which are marked in dark blue, which includes the main metro areas of Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury which remain under pressure from low listings as measured against sales activity.

 

Lifestyle

New lifestyle property listings fell across the country in November, dropping 4.9% when compared to October. A total of 1,066 listings came onto the market, showing a fall of 5.9% when compared to November last year. The truncated mean asking price for these listings was down by 1.5% as compared to the recent 3-month average to an asking price of $654,519 (up 13.9% when compared to October 2011). New record high asking prices were seen in 2 regions in New Zealand (Waikato – $675,581, and Central Otago/Lakes – $1,596,071).

 

Apartments

New listings for apartments in November down 9.5% on a year on year basis, with 484 being brought to the market. The truncated mean asking price of new apartment listings fell 1% to $394,282 in November from $398,121 in October, but was still up 6.4% on a year on year basis.

The Auckland apartment market had 304 new listings coming onto the market, down 13.1% when compared to November last year. The truncated mean asking price of new listings in Auckland rose again to $386,818 (November) from $382,303 (October) representing a 2.2% increase on the prior 3 months.

 

For Media Enquiries, please contact: Paul McKenzie, 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 96% 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. It features the most comprehensive selection of property for sale and rent across NZ. The website attracts a significant monthly audience of over 475,000 unique browsers, with over 115,000 of those visiting from countries outside of NZ.

In addition Realestate.co.nz receives over 25% of all traffic to property listings from mobile devices, including their iPhone and Android applications. To date these applications have been downloaded by over 122,000 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 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.

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 97% of all listings from licensed real estate agents in NZ.

The full NZ Property Report for November 2012 can be downloaded here (1.2MB 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 December 2012 will be published on this website on Wednesday 2nd January 2013 at 11am.

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

2

NZ Property Report – October 2012

Posted on: November 1st, 2012 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, Market News, NZ Property Report, Regional News, Uncategorized

The October 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 October. 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 97% of all property movements in the NZ market as managed by licensed real estate agents.

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

Summary of the market – October 2012

The property market continues to show signs of confidence and heightened activity as compared to the past few years. The confidence amongst sellers bringing their properties onto the market has pushed up the (seasonally adjusted) truncated mean asking price to a new high of $445,529 – the highest level since the collection of data began in 2007. This rise in asking price was noticeable right across the country, with Auckland reaching a new record high of $611,864, and Canterbury reaching a new high of $414,070.

November saw a good rise in new listings (up 12% on October 2011), and this rise has lead to some balancing of the property market in both Wellington and a number of provincial regions.

While inventory levels across the country balanced in October, the market remains a firm sellers market across 12 of NZ’s 19 regions. Overall stocks of unsold houses rose slightly to 33 weeks of inventory (long term average = 40 weeks). Both Auckland and Canterbury remain firmly sellers markets, with overall inventory levels continuing to remain well below long-term averages.

The next data for November will be interesting to review as to the final flush of new listings coming onto the market in Spring – November is traditionally one of the biggest listings months of the year. Last year that total was just over 13,000 – that at a time when inventory was considerably higher than today.

 

Asking Price

The seasonally adjusted truncated mean asking price for listings rose 4% (from September) to an all time high of $445,529 in October. This new record asking price level was up from the prior peak of $435,887 reached in May this year.

The trend as seen in the chart opposite continues to show strength in seller expectation and strong demand in the main centers.

 

New Listings

The level of new listings coming onto the market in October continued to increase, with 12,688 listings in the month – up from 11,514 in September (14% increase). October also saw big increases on last year, with an increase of 12% in listings.

On a 12 month moving total basis the number of new listings that have come onto the market in the last year totals 132,291, as compared to 124,503 in the prior 12 month period, this represents a rise of 6.3%.

 

Inventory

The level of unsold houses on the market at the end of October (43,921) remained stable, when compared to September (44,063) as measured on a seasonally adjusted basis. The inventory as measured in terms of equivalent weeks of sales rose last month to 33.1 weeks last month. This rise was witnessed across 17 of the 19 regions. But overall inventory levels still fell well below the long-term average of 39 weeks.

 

Regional Summary – Asking price expectations

The national (seasonally adjusted) truncated mean asking price expectation among sellers rose 3.8% in October to a new peak of $445,529. This exceeds the prior peak of $435,887 reached in May this year.

Following the new record high for the national asking price figure, both Auckland and Canterbury also posted record highs in October. This is the first time that the seasonally adjusted mean asking price has topped the $600,000 mark in Auckland ($611,864), and the $400,000 mark in Canterbury ($414,070).

In total 15 regions reported asking price increases, and 7 regions saw rises greater than 5%. The most significant rises were seen in the Central Otago/Lakes, Canterbury, Gisborne, Manawatu/Wanganui, Southland, and Auckland regions, with Central Otago/Lakes showing the largest increases, up 18% to $621,200 (the highest seen since November 2007). Of the 4 regions witnessing asking price falls on a seasonally adjusted basis there was just 1 reporting a fall greater than 5% with West Coast seeing a fall of 6.5%.

 

Regional Summary – Listings

Overall new listings increased on a national basis, as seen in the adjacent chart however across the regions there were slightly more regions showing increases than falls.

There were 16 regions reporting year-on-year rises, with significant increases (over 20%) seen in 10 regions. The largest increases were in Taranaki (68%), Wairarapa (40%), Hawkes Bay (34%) and Gisborne (31%)

Only 3 regions reported lower new listings than October last year with Northland being the region to report the highest fall off of 17.4% when compared to October 2011.

 

 

Regional Summary – Inventory

The inventory of unsold homes on the market eased in October, rising 9% from September to 33 weeks of stock, and shows the market re-balancing.

This re-balancing is however not occurring in the two major markets of Canterbury and Auckland where the inventory continues to remain low.

Five regions (Taranaki and West Coast) showed increases in inventory of homes on the market taking them above their respective long-term average. In addition four other regions (Central North Island, Southland, and Otago) sit close to their respective long term averages indicating a more balanced market.

Market sentiment continues to favour sellers in the remaining 10 regions, with the greatest strain being felt in the 3 regions which are marked in dark blue, which includes the main metro areas of Auckland, and Canterbury, which remain under pressure from low listings as measured against sales activity.

 

Lifestyle

New lifestyle property listings had another boost across the country in October, rising a further 18% when compared to September. A total of 1,121 listings came onto the market, showing an increase of 12% when compared to October last year. The truncated mean asking price for these listings was up by 7% as compared to the recent 3-month average to a record high asking price of $689,375 (up 13% when compared to October 2011). This record high was reflected across 4 regions in New Zealand (Northland, West Coast, Canterbury, and Central North Island).

 

Apartments

New listings for apartments in October were up 1.5% when compared to September, with 484 being brought to the market (on a year-on-year basis listings were up 9%). The truncated mean asking price of new apartment listings fell slightly to $398,121 in October from $399,489 in September, but was still up 8% on the recent 3-month average.

The Auckland apartment market followed the national trend with 300 new listings coming onto the market, up 7.1% when compared to October last year. The truncated mean asking price of new listings in Auckland rose again to $382,303 (October) from $366,057 (September) representing a 9.8% increase on the prior 3 months.

 

For Media Enquiries, please contact: Paul McKenzie, 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 96% 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. It features the most comprehensive selection of property for sale and rent across NZ. The website attracts a significant monthly audience of over 450,000 unique browsers, with over 115,000 of those visiting from countries outside of NZ.

In addition Realestate.co.nz receives over 25% of all traffic to property listings from mobile devices, including their iPhone and Android applications. To date these applications have been downloaded by over 117,000 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 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.

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 97% of all listings from licensed real estate agents in NZ.

The full NZ Property Report for October 2012 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 November 2012 will be published on this website on Monday 3rd December 2012 at 9am.

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

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Nielsen survey shows surge in homebuyers using mobile

Posted on: September 7th, 2012 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, mobile, Other interesting reads:, Technology, Website searching

The free mobile app created by Realestate.co.nz that gives users real-time, location-aware information about homes for sale and rent has now been downloaded over 100,000 times. The milestone coincides with the release of the 2012 Nielsen Real Estate Market Report, which shows a huge surge in homebuyers using mobile property search applications on smartphones.

The report revealed that 27 per cent of homebuyers who responded to the survey have used a property search mobile app in the last year, jumping up significantly from just 7 per cent recorded in 2011.

The report also revealed that seven out of ten of those homebuyers are using the Realestate.co.nz app.

The significance of these two factors can’t be understated. It shows the app is truly changing the way New Zealand home shoppers look for and view homes, and how they interact with property and agents whilst on the go. The Realestate.co.nz app gives home shoppers a birds-eye view of any area in New Zealand, showing properties that are for sale or rent.  By simply tapping on the ‘Near Me’ button, browsers are taken to a street map that shows properties within a one kilometre radius of their current location.

The app – available on both iOS for the iPhone and iPad as well as Android devices – has become an essential accessory for Kiwis searching for local properties for sale or rent. And we are aware of several buyers who have found and purchased their home for sale solely through using the mobile app. People are turning up to open homes guided by the app with a schedule fully planned of where they are going and what they are going to check out.

For more information on the Realestate.co.nz smartphone app, visit http://www.realestate.co.nz/apps

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

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Expectation for house price rises, needs to be seen in the context of recent falls

Posted on: August 15th, 2012 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured

The ASB in their quarterly Housing Survey say that a net 51% of respondents expect house prices to rise, with their expectation of a rise of 4% in the year ahead.

This expectation would see a continuation of price rises which have been seen since the beginning of 2011, 18 months ago. At that time the Stratified mean price (as published by REINZ in association with the Reserve Bank) was $351,450, in July of this year it was up to $380,425 a rise of 8% over 18 months which equates to an annual rise of 6% which makes the ASB forecast an logical extrapolation of the current trend as seen in the chart below.

A increase of 4% would see the Stratified mean price rise to $395,650 which would see it a 4% increase from the peak of the market in November 2007 – certainly a 4% increase over 5 years does not keep in line with inflation, in fact it shows a 10% decline in real dollar terms.

The following charts track the latest Stratified mean sales price across the 3 main centers. The Auckland market has already seen Stratified sales prices break through the prior peak of the market back in July 2007 and are now some 4% ahead of that level. The same is seen in Christchurch were prices are up 3.5% on the October 2007 peak. Wellington though is going against the trend where the current Stratified mean sales price is down 4.2% from the peak of October 2009 which was only marginally above the peak of September 2007.

 

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NZ Property market outlook continues to brighten

Posted on: August 13th, 2012 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, Market News

The latest data released last week by the Real Estate Institute for the month of July shows that the property market is reasonably active. That is the best description “active” rather any inference of a boom – Helen O’Sullivan the CEO rightly stated that “the current market should be seen as recovering rather than ‘booming’”.

The fact is that sales of properties across NZ in July were up 20% as compared to the same month last year with 5,907 unconditional sales booked in the month by licensed real estate agents. The first 7 months of 2012 has seen 42,464 sales as compared to 34,511 for the same 7 months of 2011, an increase of 23%. The chart below tracks the annual trend of sales growth or decline over the past 5 years. Having had 15 months of yer-on-year increases we are at that stage of seeing increases on increases on a year-on-year basis which really shows a strong trend.

The most important perspective to appreciate when examining the scale of property sales as a measure of the overall market is the historical backdrop. The chart below tracks the NZ property market from 1993 to date, measuring on the red line the 12 month moving total of property sales using the right hand axis. The blue line shows the total value of transacted sales tracked on a 12 month basis with the left hand axis scale.

 

The key take-away from this chart is just how low the property market fell between 2007 and 2009 – 105,00 down to 55,000. The current 12 month average is tracking at 69,000 with an expectation of 72,000 by the end of the year. This total now marginally surpasses the “dead-cat bounce” mini-peak of January 2010. In terms of the value of transactions this is now running at an annualised rate of $30.64 billion up 40% from the lowest point in February 2009 at $21.91 billion.

The other perspective on property sales is to reference sales to the existing stock of houses in NZ. The key factor here is just how slow new house builds have been over recent years, having said that the current estimated stock at 1.56 million is up 14% since 2000 the equivalent of an extra 189,000 homes. The chart below tracks the percentage of houses sales on an annualised basis against the stock of houses.

 

I think this chart more than any other ably demonstrates that the NZ Property market is in nothing like in a boom – the current rate of sale equates to 4.5% of all dwellings per year far below the long term average transaction level of 6%.  The market is staging a recovery as the general population regain a sense of confidence in the general economy and are clearly being influenced with what are very attractive interest rates. However we would need to see another year of 20% growth on top of this year’s 20% growth before we would be anything like approaching the long term average level of sales.

 

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Auckland property market continues to heat up

Posted on: July 4th, 2012 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, Market News, Regional News

At the half way point in the year the data keeps on reinforcing the fact that the property market activity in Auckland is firmly on the rise.

Barfoot & Thompson – Auckland’s largest real estate company reported its June sales at 994 sales in the month, up 14% on June last year. The first 6 months of this year has seen Barfoot & Thompson sell 5,602 properties, up 18% over the same period last year.

The chart above certainly shows that 3 of the past 4 months have seen sales reach significant new highs. If you exclude the April month (which seems abnormally low) the total for March, May and June represents 3,405 sales up 20% on the same 3 months of last year – some very strong growth for Barfoot & Thompson.

Naturally being the largest real estate company in the Auckland market tends to see their data reflect the overall regional performance and this is certainly the case based on the more comprehensive REINZ data – the recent Property Pulse factsheets for Auckland (Total region, North Shore, Central, Manukau, Waitakere) provide this deeper analysis.

As has been reported in the monthly NZ Property Report the inventory of property for sale in Auckland has been falling for many months and now sits at a 4 year low. This is a function of rising sales, however the rise in new listings has not been keeping pace with sales. Taking Barfoot & Thompson data, again as stated earlier the first half of the year has seen a sales growth of 18% – the rise in listings for the same period showed only a 7% growth. The monthly data of new listings for Barfoot & Thompson is shown below.

This situation of new listings lagging the growth of sales can best be seen when stacking up the two sets of data (sales & listings) on the same chart. The data used in this chart below is the 3 month moving average and I have split the axis to emphasise the significant gap appearing between sales and listings – a situation not seen before over the past 5 years of data.

As Barfoot & Thompson cite in their market report this shortage of properties for sale, with buyers being quick to commit, (is) pushing up prices to an all-time high of $589,251. The chart below tracks this trend over the past few years and using a trend line certainly provides a guide to the scale of this trend.

 

 

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Seven tips to selling your house

Posted on: July 3rd, 2012 | Filed in Agent Tips, Buying / Selling a home, Online marketing

Buying and selling a house is not, and should not be considered an art – such an important investment / asset should deserve the value of scientific and mathematical analytics.

“Seven tactics for selling your home”  (Redfin – a US based real estate company) outlines facts borne of scientific data and analysis that should be read and understood by all property owners and agents alike. The data might be from the US, but the relevancy to NZ I don’t think would be disputed. Applying a local interpretation provides this summary.

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1. Don’t overprice your property – clearly the age old dilemma of the vendors expectations being beyond the rational desire of the buyer to pay what they believe the property is worth. But did you know the impact of a protracted sale on the ultimate price?

2. Set your price to show up in web searches – as cited in an earlier post “So what price is that property on the site” pricing to search criteria on websites is critical

3. Best day to list a property – the US research says the best day to list is Friday, classically this is when the weekly magazines come out, but did you know that most searches on realestate.co.nz are undertaken on a Monday lunchtime – listing on the weekend with an email alert on Monday morning can coincide with the peak searching at work on Monday mornings

4. Stay engaged – pretty logical as your property is your most valuable asset so applying the time to the selling process would be a good investment in your time

5. Market the property online – with over 80% of real estate searches starting online this is logical. Added to this is the fact that each listing on realestate.co.nz is viewed for an average of 77 minutes per month; with the website recording well over 100,000 hours of viewings per month by over 240,000 unique viewers

6. Don’t move out of your house when selling – the US research shows a reduce price results as a perception of a distressed vendor

7. Don’t list when others around you may be suffering mortgagee sales – a panicked marketplace is not the time or the place to sell

Clearly there are many more – presentation, decoration, photography etc etc, but it is compelling to see the statistics supporting these key 7 tips.

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Energy efficiency as important as aesthetic features for house buyers

Posted on: June 27th, 2012 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, Green

There is a widely held opinion that the things that matter most to home buyers are gourmet kitchens and spectacular indoor / outdoor flow

The reality though is that this perception is changing, and energy efficiency to provide a warm and dry home is fast rising up the shopping list for buyers.

A survey undertaken by Realestate.co.nz in association with the Green Building Council for the Sustainable Housing Summit surveyed over 1,700 people as to their attitude to features seen as important when looking for a home to buy.

The number one feature that home buyers judged as most important was the orientation of the property to the sun. More than half of those surveyed regarded this as of “very high importance” with a further one third rating it as “high importance”. This compares to the importance of a gourmet kitchen, which scored just 16% on the scale of “very high importance” with 34% judging it as of “high importance”.

After orientation to the sun, the next most important feature was a high level of insulation. Scoring a 46% on the scale of “very high importance” and 35% of “high importance, insulation surpassed other aesthetic features such as a 3rd bedroom and off street parking, as well as the ubiquitous “indoor / outdoor flow”.

The full list of 18 features are detailed below on a mean importance score on a 1 to 5 scale. The features highlighted in red relate to energy efficiency and performance rating of a home.

Inspection Priorities

The survey went on to investigate to what extent buyers had inquired or inspected for aspects of environment / energy performance. In this case the 3 features that are “visible” and top-of-mind for buyers were inquired of in more than 70% of the time – presence of insulation, inquiring about heating and asking questions about dampness. Certainly buyers appear to be front-footed on these performance features that impact the warmth and comfort of the home.

On the other hand fewer asked questions about water an operating costs or any environmental features of the home each inquired about by less than a third of buyers.

 

Price Premium

Of those questioned who were looking to sell their property or had recently sold a staggering 88% believed that there was the potential for a price premium for properties that could demonstrate performance features such as energy, water and heating efficiency.

We then went on to seek to find out what type of features would most impact this perception of a price premium. The big 3 items were high levels of insulation, efficient heating and cooling system and double-glazing. Judged of lower opinion on a 1 to 5 importance rating score were low energy lighting, fixtures and fitting with low toxicity and or an independent rating certificate for a home’s performance.

This is the first such comprehensive survey undertaken into this area of home buying. It certainly has established that energy performance and the warmth and health aspects of a home are very much on the shopping list. As to what buyers look for as a signal, at this stage it appears to be very much around tangible items that can be seen and touched as opposed as to performance measures behind features. Time will tell if these performance measures move up the priority list and start to surpass that granite benchtop.

 

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Mortgagee stress in the NZ Property market?

Posted on: June 11th, 2012 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Media commmentary, Money Matters

We seem to have a difference of opinion according to the newspapers recently. The NZ Herald had a front page story titled “Mortgagee sales: Landlords feel pain” in which the author quoting the latest mortgagee sales stats from Terralink, says that these figures “challenge” the stats from Realestate.co.nz that “claims” that foreclosures are declining.

So what is the truth. Are mortgagee sales declining or increasing and which data is right? The fact is both companies and both sets of data are right. It all comes down to the understanding of the different data sources and the interpretation of that data.

To provide clarity let me present both sets of data.

Mortgagee Sales

Terralink International provide a report detailing the sale of properties classed as mortgagee sales. They collect this data from LINZ (Land Information NZ) which as a government organisation is charged with registering title changes. Terralink has been analysing this data and identifying sales as those where the vendor is a bank or financial institution. That being the case when a bank has re-possessed a property where the owner has forfieted the right of ownership when the mortgage payments have been failed to be paid.

Terralink report that in 2011 2,265 properties were sold where the vendor was a bank or financial institution. On a quarterly basis the sales are shown below. The last reported monthly stats from Terralink were reported in June 2010.

As the data shows the peak of sales were in 2009 with a total of 3,024 in the year. Certainly the first 3 months of 2012 was up significantly on the first quarter of 2011 or 2010.

An important note in regard to this data set is that sales are recorded at the date the title change is registered with LINZ. In the normal course of property transactions legal title change must be registered within 3 months from settlement date (although many lawyers these days file online transfers on the day of settlement), therefore it is quite possible that sales recorded by Terralink from LINZ data relates to properties advertised as mortgagee sales anything up to 6 months earlier, even as far as 9 months earlier. That could mean that within the 524 sales for Q1 2012 there could be property that came up for mortgagee sale anytime in the second half of 2011 potentially.

 

Mortgagee Listings

Realestate.co.nz has been recording the data of mortgagee listings on its website since the beginning of 2007. The data has been presented in regular reports on Unconditional. The data is the weekly number of properties advertised on the realestate.co.nz website which the listing agent has defined the property as being sold as a mortgagee sale or auction. There is an obligation for the agent to detail that the property is the subject of a mortgagee sale and often it appears in the headline. In the main properties being sold as mortgagee are sold quickly; as the bank, once listing such a property does not want a protracted process. This uniform listing period ensures the data of listings is a statistically valid view of properties being placed on the market by banks and other financial institutions.

As the chart below shows the number of listings being marketed as mortgagee sales at any one time peaked in 2009 at over 400 properties. Subsequently the number of listings has seen a steady decline.

As of today there are 203 properties on the market classified as mortgagee sales. As a point of note the search on the site for the word mortgagee shows 238 listings, the difference lies in the fact that some of these listings are for land rather than properties.

The key point in regard to the stats on the realestate.co.nz website is that this is recording the active market today for new listings, listing which may be completed in the next 2 months and then registered with LINZ and then appear in the Terralink stats later in the year.

 

Alignment of the two sets of data

Hopefully it is clear that both sets of data are accurate, but one shows a leading indicator of listings, whilst the other shows the following indicator of sales.

There is a point of correlation though. Looking at the last 2 months of 2011 it can be seen that there was a spike of new listings. At the time I referred to this as the continuation of the mortgagee hangover. The deduction at the time was that the increase in activity in the property market could well have fueled confidence amongst banks to list properties that they had on their books. This flush of listings may well have been transacted early in the new year as recorded sales registered with LINZ in the first 3 months of 2012, to therefore be included in the latest Terralink data.

Looking at the latest weekly data comparing week by week to prior years shows the relative activity in new listings of mortgagee properties by agents this year.

 

 

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