As the Auckland property market continues to thrive, listings have started to tighten up in some areas, yet we continue to see a surge of interest for Auckland Central  and City fringe apartments.

Demand is continuing to be driven by investors chasing healthy net returns, downsizers seeking the increasingly desirable lifestyle change and the continued growth of first home buyers entering our market. Affordability continues to play a significant role in this heightened demand along with the ongoing transformation of the inner city into a thriving, urban lifestyle with ample options available for busy, time conscious nest seekers.

New listings on the market are up compared to February 2020, while ongoing buyer demand has shown considerable growth in the number of sales that have taken place when compared to the same time last year for our City Apartments team.

Our auctions are continuing to prove the best way to sell apartments as we’re seeing good commitment and competition among buyers in our rooms, resulting in us achieving results that exceed many of our sellers price expectations.

On the Property Management front,  the updated Residential Tenancy Act 2020 is now in full effect with our SuperCity Rentals team having a clear understanding of the complexities of how these changes work in real life scenarios. If you would like to have a chat about this or seek any further advice on the RTA update, please contact one of our SuperCity Rentals team anytime. What are you waiting for?

Ray White Now | Volume 38 – Carey Smith, Chief Executive of Ray White NZ

Changes in Alert levels does not stop market momentum – Sales for February 2021 lift by 84.4% in comparison to the same time last year.

We were able to transition quickly on to a virtual platform for properties that are being submitted to auction during the week and while only early  we see that there continues to be significant strength across the majority of markets and we are also welcoming new listings coming onto the market for buyers.

The month of February 2021 showed the highest number of sales on record with the sales results coming through from our network members showing a value increase of 84.4 per cent higher at $1.4 billion worth of sales in comparison to the same time last year. In regards to the number of released sales the network completed an increase of 38.6% showing 1,673 properties completed and this is a more modest increase against the value increase which shows predominantly how prices have risen during the past 12 months.

The Ray White listing numbers increased marginally by 2.3 per cent up to 1,815 in comparison to 1,775 this time last year. So while the demand side of the business continues at the highest level listings while still coming onboard in good numbers are being sold at a high percentage combined with low days on the market.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand released their expectations around house price inflation in their latest policy statement and within this forecast they have suggested that house price inflation is set to peak at 22.4% for the year before falling to 10.2 per cent by the end of the year. This has changed markedly from the November forecast which suggested that price inflation for housing would be 7.9 per cent. Amidst this is the recent commentary from Westpac saying that the potential of rising interest rates and increasing house supply will assist the housing market to cool.

Both have an interesting dynamic for the buyer and the seller and we look more deeply in our report this week as to how this inconsistent commentary comes about. We believe that it is still critically important to remain with actual data that provides for short forecasting, particularly in respect of the buyer and seller who are considering what is the impact of the depth of the buyer pool, affordability of purchasing a home, and in the area of supply in respect to purchasing another property.

We need to continue to take into consideration the first home buyer and also the investor buyer classifications who don’t necessarily bring property onto the market to replace the demand that has been created within these sectors. This of course fluctuates in different areas and is an important factor in the price outcomes for sellers and buyers.

Read the full Ray White Now report HERE