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Grocery shopping and real estate – a match made in heaven?

Posted on: March 11th, 2010 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, International, Real Estate Industry

Grocery aisle - real estate and grocery - a match made in heaven? This week has seen the official launch of a new real estate service in the UK, bringing the British public a real estate service packaged up with their weekly groceries.

Tesco, the largest UK grocery chain has partnered with Spicerhaart, one of the UK’s largest real estate chains to establish iSold – what they describe as “The UK’s newest estate agency, iSold has taken the very best in estate agency and made it even better”.

The service offered by iSold appears from the website analysis to be a 3 tiered full service comprising an up front fee of £299 (NZ$636) for valuation and marketing including extensive online profile of the property across the main websites. A completion fee of £700 (NZ$1,500) is payable on sale. This basic package is complemented by a Premium package at a total cost of £1,119 (NZ$2,380) and Premium Plus at £1,299 (NZ$2,764) – no clear details of the extent of the premium services are yet available.

It is clear from the current site that a lot of focus is placed on the valuation and the right pricing to help you sell. The site states that iSold has their own locally-based valuation experts. The initial launch has been focused in Bristol before this week rolling out around a number of regional centers across the country.

This activity comes close on the heals of the move by RE/MAX real estate brokerage in New England (US) to open 17 micro real estate offices within a chain of grocery stores.

The question is – Is this likely to be a future trend for the real estate industry here in NZ as more and more real estate offices question their high street presence as more of the marketing moves online?

There is quiet a bit of precedent already established in this area of grocery chain diversification. It is worth reflecting on this to provide some perspective to this concept. Here in NZ we had an ambitious move by Foodstuffs in 2003 to establish a banking service (SuperBank) in their New World stores. That move which was itself modeled on the Tesco banking service in the UK ultimately failed to capture sufficient customers before the business folded in 2006 with all the customers being transferred to Kiwibank.

The fact is grocery stores are very high traffic outlets. They are very strong retail brands and they are always looking for higher margin offerings to supplement the high volume / low margin grocery business. So there is a possibility for such a move in the future. It is also interesting to compare this UK iSold model with “The Joneses” business model launched back in 2007 with a full service agency based on a fixed fee service instead of traditional commissions.

Is summer really the best time to sell a property?

Posted on: March 1st, 2010 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Website searching

Ask an assembled group of property owners when is the best time of year to buy or sell property. You are likely to get the answer that summer is the best time. However for whilst toy manufacturers and retailers know that over 50% of their business occurs in the last 2 months of the year, real estate agents are actually pretty busy selling property year round.

The fact is that property sales are actually less susceptible to seasonality than some may think. In the chart below the calendar year is laid out showing the peaks and troughs of sales – this data is showing seasonality; based on over 15 years of data from the Real Estate Institute.

The analysis has shown that month-on-month variation in property sales tends to fluctuate by far less than people perceive. March is the most active month of the year, with January being the least active. Taking a typical year and a total sales of say 8,000 in March. This would equate to 258 sales per day; based on the same market the figure for January would be less, but still a respectable 190 sales per day. As for the winter months – they would average around 216 sales per day.

Having said that sales are not that seasonal it may come as some surprise to learn that there are some hidden “windows” of opportunity during the year to list a home for sale! In fact when selling a property, the best time could be in the middle of winter, a time traditionally thought of as the worst time of the year for the property market!

The chart below tracks the seasonality of listing volumes (new property coming onto the market) and also number of people viewing property online. These important new sets of data have only recently been available as a function of the dominance of the web in real estate researching.

The activity of researching and viewing property online (in red above) hardly varies by much through out the year (with the single exceptions of the ever-present distractions of Christmas and the fast approaching summer holidays). For reference website traffic is measured across a basket of leading real estate websites including Realestate.co.nz.

The one surprising fact though highlighted from the analysis is the seasonality of new listings coming onto the market (shown in blue above). In this regard the behaviour of sellers is completely out of line with buyer activity.

The majority of new property listings tend to flood onto the market in February & March and again in October & November. Such is the surge that close to 40% of all new listings in a year, pour onto the market in just these 4 months in the expectation that this is when buyers are most active. Equally in contrast, those winter months of June, July and August show the lowest level of new listings coming onto the market falling to barely 20% of the annual total of all new listings hitting the market during the 3 months of winter.

So what does this analysis tell us as property owners and buyers, and what should you do to take advantage of this analysis?

Well thinking about it, there is an opportunity here for astute property sellers. For whilst the temptation is to list either in the spring or summer, grabbing the winter season could give your property greater exposure at a time when fewer listings are out in the market to compete with, and yet at the same time buyer interest does not decline to the same extent.

So maybe the best advice is be brave and be different, and just maybe that sale may come sooner than you think giving you the opportunity to be buying just as all the new spring season listings hit the market.

A perspective of real estate search in 2012

Posted on: February 19th, 2010 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Technology

The first two months of this year has provided me with a clear view of the future of real estate; and at the same time provided a view of the leap that I think we will collectively take in the application of technology in the property market. This clarity has come as a result of a couple of key signals, the first of which came from the single defining message from the Inman Connect conference in New York at the start of January – the message loud and clear was MOBILE.

Mobile, as in the always-accessible, real-time, comprehensive, location-aware data to enable buyers to be more efficient in the property searching process to find that perfect home.

Secondly we have witnessed the birth of not just a new product, but a new category in technology. I am speaking of course of the iPad. I am confident this new product will spawn a new category for information and media consumption. The new Apple device whilst being derided by some as just an iTouch with a bigger screen, for me is the first computing device built as a reading device that is not derived from the humble typewriter. If you cast aside smart phones for the moment for their limited screen size; the iPad is the first accessory that is designed to be viewed, read and used to help us make sense of information. It is not compromised by a clam shell construction and a 19th century keyboard structure.

Rightly as some will argue the iPad will not become the instant hot item as the iPhone was; but give it a few years and let a few of your friends get one, and before long the iPad and the “me-to” devices that will undoubtedly spring to life will hold a serious role in consumers’ lives in the coming years.

So the question then is – how could this device and its competitors change the world of property search? To think this through, visualise for a moment a day in the future, some day a year or so from now when you are looking for a new home.

You will be walking across the road to the open home having utilized the turn by turn driving instructions in your car downloaded from the web app to get the travel sequence for today’s open home schedule for the 3 properties you wanted to check out. The app also conveniently worked out and recommended a convenient cafe on the route for you to have a quick coffee.

The long black and flat white was all the better for the online promotion code and the service more than merited a recommendation easily uploaded through the iphone app as part of the open home schedule.

Approaching the open home you activate the record device on your iPhone to capture images and comments pertaining to the layout of the house – all contextually linked to the dynamic floor plan of the property. You calmly wander through the house having by passed the registration book as an established client with the real estate agent.

No need for open home brochure here, as the agent had already provided all the necessary reports including LIM, valuation, title record and Zoodle report on the community and amenities. All accessible and stored online for easy reference.

The open home “host” reminds you politely for the completion of the open home survey which has already been triggered by the iPhone app. The open home “host” now has a complete list of attendees at the property through blue-tooth & RFID matching to enquirers interested in the property.

Leaving the property your attention is drawn to the property across the road. Accessing the Zoodle app you verify the property ID through the augmented reality and having already set up a 3 month subscription service to the Zoodle data you are instantly provided with sales history and current valuation on the property as you stand facing the house. The data certainly gives you confidence that the home opposite, the one you are keen on is reasonably priced.

Returning home you relax in the lounge and complete the open home survey on your iPad, providing the listing agent with comments on all aspects of the house. You also take the opportunity to provide an indication of what you think the property is likely to sell for. You then have the chance to review the property combining the agent provided details together with your own images and notes recorded during the open home visit making for a comprehensive portfolio about the property all stored and accessible on the “My Property” section on Realestate.co.nz.

With all the relevant information you could need, you are now ready to contact the agent to discuss an offer – you conference in the agent and your solicitor and make an offer – all electronically – of course!

Asking price expectations : market impact or regulatory impact

Posted on: January 22nd, 2010 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Money Matters, Other interesting reads:

The December NZ Property Report featured here on Unconditional on New Year’s day highlighted that between November and December the asking price expectation of properties in NZ fell by 1.7% to $412,319. This fall had come off the back of a couple of stable months of price expectation.

At the time of writing that report, the assumption behind this decline in asking price was that the market was adjusting prices as a result of somewhat flat demand. This fall in demand was being seen in the much softer sales volumes through the last quarter of the year.

However another explanation for this decline was brought to my attention by Steve Taylor an agent in Christchurch who is a regular writer of a local real estate blog – Doctor’n the House.

His recent post “Why has asking price gone down?” highlighted the fact that with the commencement of the new legislation (Real Estate Agents Act 2008) real estate licensed sales people now have a legal obligation to provide a written appraisal for every house they propose to list on behalf of the owner. This appraisal needs to include an estimated market price of the property.

Whilst this change is in itself not vastly different from prior practices whereby a price level would have been discussed between agent and vendor – the view which Steve highlights and I tend to agree with is that this universal requirement is potentially driving a more accountable responsibility on the part of the sales agent to market the property at a price which is judged to be the market price.

Clearly the enactment of this requirement of the new Act has only been in operation for 8 weeks so it will be very interesting to see the coming months for signs of the movement in asking price of properties coming onto the market.

Latest property data shows weakness in sales numbers

Posted on: January 19th, 2010 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Other interesting reads:, REINZ Monthly data

The statistics released by the Real Estate Institute (REINZ) yesterday focused on the record median price – $360,000 – stating in the article:

“Real Estate Institute of New Zealand President Peter McDonald says it’s an appreciating market fuelled by a shortage of properties for sale but is looking optimistic for 2010″.

The other half of the story relates to property sales number which were 4,957 in the month – these sales figures are the 3rd lowest in the last ten years for December which is naturally a quiet selling month. The best December ever was back in 2003 when 8,669 properties were sold.

The more concerning fact behind the numbers is that through the last 6 months; year on year comparative monthly sales have been steadily building on the very low sales base of 2008. Through the period from April to November the volumes compared to 2008 was averaging increases of 40%. In September sales were up 44%. However the December sales at 4,957 was only up 15%.

What is more concerning is that a year ago we were experiencing the low point of sales volumes as a result of the global economic recession and the slow down of the NZ property market. This was acute in the 3 month period of November, December and January last year. So in theory we should have seen a sales volume in December more of the order of 5,500 rather than 4,957.

The reasoning behind this view is seasonality. December is on average 7.3% of all annual sales just as November is a bigger month representing 9.1% of annual sales on average. Taking the last 6 months of seasonally adjusted sales prior to the December figures the calculations were all pointing to a total annual sales for the whole of 2009 of 75,000.

The input of the December stats resulted in the total for calendar year 2009 of just 69,629 just 24% up on the all time low of 2008 of 56,128.

To provide a view and perspective of the current sales volumes the graph below tracks the seasonally adjusted 12 month moving average sales volumes over the past 5 years. The key periods of the market have been highlighted to bring clarity to the market movements.

The strong sales period – through 2005 and 2006 with sales in excess of 100,000 per 12 month moving average
The downturn which started midway through 2007, bottoming out in March 2008
The flat period through most of 2008 averaging just 55,000 per 12 month moving average
The Spurt of activity in the first half of 2009 before what has been another leveling off leaving sales at this 70,000 12 month moving average level, before the recent fall off over the past quarter relative to seasonal averages.

Just for clarification this chart is developed by weighting each months actual sales to the seasonal average representation, with the average based on the period 1992 to 2009. So for example taking December 2009 with 4,957 sales – December on average represents 7.3% of all sales of a year therefore in theory this sales volume for December would extrapolate to a 12 month equivalent sales volume of 68,084 sales

Some genuine home truths about home buying

Posted on: January 17th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Buying / Selling a home, Online marketing, Other interesting reads:

If there is one thing more certain in NZ these days than the latest political scandal or sporting event, it is the view people have to real estate and the purchase of a property.

It is so true that everyone has an opinion and every opinion is the polar opposite of everybody else’s!

It was with this in mind that my eye was caught by a great blog post by Jane Yee, who writes on Stuff.co.nz. Jane is a classic Gen X / Gen Y and her life is played out through her regular blog entitled the “Girls Guide”. Now there are two really important things to reflect on at this stage (i) Jane is of the age that most people start to buy property, and (ii) Jane writes from a woman’s perspective which is as is well known very much the influential voice in real estate transactions in the case of couples.

Her most recent post “Real Estate, Everyone’s and expert” is one of the clearest perspectives I have read on the consumer psyche of buying or searching for property I have ever read. It should be mandatory reading for anyone in the real estate industry. Added to Jane’s excellent prose is over 60 comments from “people like her” that further add to the richness. I really urge everyone to read and comment.

By way of dissection, below I have distilled what I consider to be the key takeaways I see as pivotal to the process – valuable sources of focus for ambitious operators in this industry.

Buying a home despite what many believe it to be is not always a rental investment property. Many people just want to satisfy their emotional desire to own a home – it is also a great form of forced savings
The process of house hunting is time consuming, enormously time consuming involving – daily review of listings (I clearly need to introduce Jane to Realestate.co.nz as well as Trade Me, after all Realestate.co.nz does feature a more complete view of whats on the market), as well as weekend open homes
The activity is very much a self managed exercise.
Everyone has an opinion / piece of advice. At the end of the day the collective wisdom as represented by the comments is that you have to make that decision yourself and accept the implications.
Your key partner in the process seem to be the mortgage broker rather than the real estate agent
Unfortunately real estate agents tend to be seen (and demonstrate the behaviour) of being seen as purveyors of other people’s listings
There are huge emotions involved in real estate process – the heartache of missing out, matched to the desire to find just the right place
Home buying has a benefit in a sense of control, something that can not be attained through renting and therefore financial comparisons are not always relevant

To what extent does price marketing effect property appeal?

Posted on: January 17th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Buying / Selling a home, Online marketing

There have been regular articles and commentary throughout 2009 related to the merits or shortcomings of advertising property with a price or not; whether to market as an an auction, or to display no price “and let the market decide”!

Many views and opinions lie behind these approaches. I decided (as I often do) to dig into the numbers and see what the facts say. Is there more evidence that displaying a price increases viewings and what is the predominant method of price marketing for property?

Judged purely on consumer feedback I would have been drawn to say that putting a price on a property would be the best approach as we regularly receive emails from users of the site, advocating the full and transparent displaying of a price on every property.

Firstly the fact is that the most popular method of marketing a property on the web as judged through all property listings in 2009 was a fixed price – 63% of all properties featured on the site were marketed with a clear price.

As property price ranges rise there is a move towards other forms of price marketing. In the sub $200k range a fixed price represents a majority 68% of all listings, whereas for property over a $1m it falls to just 37%. Between $200k and $500k it is 67% and between $500k and $1m it is 54%. So agents seem to favour less specific price indications as property values rise.

In the $1m plus category of the property market the most popular pricing method was “Negotiation” representing 38% of all listings just ahead of the fixed price at 37%. Third place comes Auctions with 14%.

Auctions are more significantly favoured interestingly for high price properties. Between $500k and $1m is the peak of Auction pricing with 15% of all listings in this category being marketed as an auction, over $1m it is 14% and in the below $200k category the level is 11% and interestingly between $200k and $500k it is only 7% being marketed as an auction.

Tenders are one of the least popular means of marketing properties representing just 1% of all listings, although in the higher price category of between $500k and $1m and over $1m it represented close to 2%.

Having outlined the make up of listings by pricing method the big question was, is there any appreciable difference in viewing performance between the differing pricing methods – do property with a clear price receive proportionality any more viewing??

The bottom line is no! – properties without a price are not ignored by viewers!

In terms of viewing properties there is interestingly very little difference in the relative viewing between properties with a price and properties without a displayed price. This did come as somewhat of a surprise as some of the extreme comments of emails we receive state that these people completely ignore properties without a price.

Overall if anything Auctions actually generated more viewings than listings in general by around 11%. This could be because auctions are marketed for a shorter period of time and tend to focus attention and generate repeat viewings online prior to the auction.

The other very noticeable fact is that higher priced properties are viewed more than lower price properties – this could be around aspiration from prospective or casual viewers of the site, or could be that simply higher priced properties are just more attractive!!

Note: This analysis is based on all properties featured on the website of Realestate.co.nz during 2009 – a total of 87,500 listings. The price range segments quoted are reflective of the displayed price, or the indicative range, which is provided by the agent to us to use to power the search result, whilst not being displayed on the site. For these properties with a price range we used the mid point average as a price guide.

NZ Property price recovery – are we there yet?

Posted on: December 15th, 2009 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Featured, REINZ Monthly data

iStock_000011075814Smaller The reports of recent weeks and months would have us believing that the property crash of 2008/9 was well behind us and prices are now powering up to new highs.

Some of the data would support this – however as is well documented, you can always find data to support any argument. When it comes to house prices there is too much at stake to allow headlines to drive such important decision making activity as house buying.

In NZ as has been discussed and presented on this blog in the past there are a number of house price statistics which derive their data from a variety of sources – some more timely than others and some more robust than others. What there is a need for is a trusted and definitive measure of house price – in the USA the Standard & Poor’s Case Shiller House Price Index is the trusted gold standard.

The NZ equivalent is the Stratified House Price Index. This index was established in August utilising the data from the Real Estate Institute’s members (licensed real estate agents) of unconditional property sales. This raw data is then computed using the stratified model built by the Reserve Bank of NZ. The abstract of the methodology is summarised below:

Widely used measures of growth in mean or median housing prices will reflect changes in the composition of dwellings sold as well as changes in demand and supply conditions. Using a suburb-level dataset from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand we use stratification techniques to adjust for compositional change and derive a timely and robust measure of housing prices for New Zealand. Results suggest this stratified measure produces estimates of housing price inflation that accord closely with the accurate but less timely figures obtained from the QV Quarterly House Price Index.

Simply put the use of medians and averages for house prices are always influenced by sales volume and sales composition (more or less high price / low price properties). The chart below provides a visual representation of the stratified median house price by month since Jan 2000 as compared to the straight median price for the same month. Both calculations are derived from identical data in each month.

The divergence of the two lines from 2002, which showed the greatest gap in 2007 is likely to be the result of the composition of property sales over the period. The Stratified mean reflecting a higher price as a function of the compositional change in the NZ housing stock over the period – more higher priced properties.

Current data

The latest reported statistics of Stratified median price for November from the Real Estate Institute is broken down by key cities. The data is presented in the following charts which portray the detail of the past 5 years and highlight the market peak of prices and the market decline together with recent resurgence – they individually and collectively seek to answer the question: “are we there yet in property price recovery?”

National house price

The current price of $369,825 shows a recovery from the low point of January this year when the price had fallen to $337,400. That initial fall of 11.4% from the market peak of November 2007 when the market reached $380,900. The current price is still 2.9% below the peak of the market – No, we have as yet not recovered!

Auckland house price

The current price of $487,650 shows a recovery from the low point of exactly 12 months ago when the price had fallen to $337,400. That initial fall of 14.6% from the market peak of July 2007 when the market reached $510,197. The current price is still 4.4% below the peak of the market – No, we have as yet not recovered!

Wellington house price

The current price of $414,140 shows a recovery from the low point of September last year when the price had fallen to $372,075. That initial fall of 12.2% from the market peak of September 2007 when the market reached $423,955. The current price is actually just below the peak of 2 years ago, however the figure for October ($424,615) set a new peak – Yes, we have recovered!

Christchurch house price

The current price of $345,925 shows a recovery from the low point of January this year when the price had fallen to $309,400. That initial fall of 14.6% from the market peak of October 2007 when the market reached $362,475. The current price is still 4.6% below the peak of the market – No, we have as yet not recovered!

Other North Island house price

The current price of $300,675 shows a recovery from the low point of January this year when the price had fallen to $283,600. That initial fall of 12.0% from the market peak of November 2007 when the market reached $322,305. The current price is still 6.7% below the peak of the market – No, we have as yet not recovered!

Other South Island house price

The current price of $276,100 shows a recovery from the low point of January this year when the price had fallen to $254,010. That initial fall of 13.1% from the market peak of February 2008 when the market reached $292,425. The current price is still 5.6% below the peak of the market – No, we have as yet not recovered!

Comprehensive price data on each area of NZ

Posted on: December 8th, 2009 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Regional News

Every month we seem to be presented with more and more information on the property market. This is excellent for all involved in the real estate market as it will ensure better informed decisions.

In what seems like a very quiet move QV has produced an excellent analysis of property price movements for almost all territorial local authorities across the country.

However this is not just the normal data of the average price in this region this month vs last month – this analysis is far more detailed.

They have segmented the price bands of property in each area and detailed the movement of price in each area within each price band comparing the first quarter of 2009 with the third quarter (July – Sep 2009). The examples below highlight the regions with the highest and lowest price appreciation – North Shore and Queenstown.

qv-tla-data

The charts for 37 territorial local authorities of the country are provided in this download pdf summary. There are some areas excluded as QV highlight due to insufficient data to make meaningful comparisons.

Auckland property – facts on the state of the market

Posted on: December 4th, 2009 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, Media commmentary, Other interesting reads:, REINZ Monthly data

istock_000006996157xsmall Recent data published in the media seems to be pointing to a impending bubble in the Auckland market – described in the NZ Herald as “a bubble that will burst and cause a painful property recession”.

I confess that our own NZ Property report for November contained a component of this speculation stating as it did that

The price rise in Auckland (asking price expectation) of 4.1% (Nov ‘09 vs. 3 month average) is a direct result of the tightness of the market with inventory levels remaining tight as the flow of new listings seems to be being met by a steady demand

As ever any analysis of a market in order to be able to establish trends requires access to the most comprehensive data. It is appropriate to gather this data and undertake some detailed analysis.

The chosen data I have analysed for the Auckland region is the REINZ sales figures and the new REINZ / Reserve Bank Stratified House price index. Both of these sets of data are geographically defined as being the compete Auckland Region comprising the current 7 local authorities. The sales data is sourced from all of the licensed real estate offices selling properties which are in this region.

To this data I have analysed the realestate.co.nz data of property listings which uses the same geographical boundaries as the REINZ data and is compiled from the listings of licensed real estate offices for properties listed in the region. The website is the most comprehensive source of property listings of real estate agents with over 94% of all offices loading listings to the website.

As a point of note the NZ Herald article made its assertion based on data from Barfoot & Thompson sales data as representative of the Auckland market. There is potentially some error in this assumption as B&T operate extensively in Auckland as well as Northland and down through the middle of the North Island – of the current 7,568 listings on their website 17% (1,322) are for properties outside of the Auckland region.

Taking sales data first. The fact is that sales in Auckland are back from the extreme lows of 2008. At that time average monthly sales were around 1,406, the most recent 6 months in Auckland have seen an average of 2,059 up 46%; however the average through 2007 (albeit clearly recognised as a heady peak of the market) was 2,537.

The chart below details sales over the last 3 years with the respective months of Aug / Sep / Oct / highlighted in red. The key thing to note is how the sales level appears to be relatively stable over the period since March 2009 at a consistent level similar to 2008 albeit 50% higher.

Turning to pricing which is naturally the key concern to most people as most people only want to buy or sell one house.

The Real Estate Institute have with the assistance of the Reserve Bank produced a very credible Stratified House Price Index which stands up to the extreme scrutiny of economists and academics as it is not impacted by the externalities that affect average or median price as a function of the performance of house sales within differing price bands.

The data for this House Price Index goes back to 1992 and the Auckland data is presented in the chart below:

The striking rise through the last decade is most evident from the graph as is the fall from the peak and the subsequent resurgence. However what is also very clear from the graph is the fact that using this credible house price index the market price in Auckland has not as yet returned to the peak level seen in July 2007 – the current price index is still 5.8% below the peak.

In terms of actual stratified median price from the same data the current (Oct 09) price in Auckland is $480,510 and the peak in July 2007 was $510,197. This does contradict the article which stated that Auckland prices had “recovered all the losses experienced over the past two years“.

It is useful to match side by side the sales across the Auckland region with the sale price as the chart below does. There is a recognised fact, in that prices tend to follow sales volume trends and the rise and subsequent decline in volumes and price through 2007 and into 2008 would attest to that, as would the volume rise and price rise in early 2009. The key issue now though is the trend of price rises extending whilst sales volumes have moderated – this could foretell a softening of prices in the coming months.

As a further support to the view that the Auckland market is stabilising and not about to create an inflated bubble is the additional data set of listings. The chart below tracks the number of new listings added in the market in the Auckland region matched to sales. What is interesting is how conspicuous is the rising level of new listings which is leaving a fair gap from the monthly sales – this would indicate that the market has a growing stock of houses for keen buyers.

A growing inventory of new listings takes pressure off prices and buyers feel less pressured to have to “grab a property” in the fear of missing out which was the symptom so conspicuously seen back in the peak of the bubble through 2006 & 2007.

Overall I believe that in analysing this comprehensive and robust set of data there is more than enough evidence to take the view that the Auckland market is fairly well balanced and therefore unlikely to suffer a “painful property recession” – however forecasting the property market is never an exact science and only time will tell, after all this data is all historical – telling us what happened, nothing for certain ever tells us what will happen!

The Unconditional Blog

The impartial voice of the industry