Auckland in New Zealand experienced strong property market in 2012
The average price of homes sold in Auckland, New Zealand increased by 7.7% in 2012 as last month saw another period of strong sales for the residential property market. It means property prices have increased by $41,590 to $584,715 when compared to 2011’s average price, the highest percentage increase in five years, according to agents Barfoot & Thompson.
‘While this is the highest percentage increase in five years, it follows on three years of average price increases that failed to keep pace with the rate of inflation,’ said Peter Thompson, the firm’s managing director. He also pointed out that with 920 sales in the month at an average price of $624,015, last month saw the highest number of sales in a December for eight years.
‘The average price achieved remained high, with it being down less than $4,000 on November’s all time record average price of $627,721. The average price for each of the past three months has now exceeded $600,000, setting a new benchmark,’ he explained.
Also, while new listings in December are normally relatively low compared to the rest of the year, this December’s new listings at 697 were exceptionally modest, and the lowest recorded in a month for the past decade. They were down 17.6% on those for last December prompting Thompson to comment, ‘It was also the first time in the past decade when we listed fewer homes in a month at 697 than the number of homes sold at 920. At the end of December we had only 3,410 properties on our books, the lowest number since records have been kept, and 10.6% lower than we had at the end of November’. He added that December’s property trading followed the same trend experienced for most of the second half of 2012.
Quote from PropertyCommunity.com : “Residential property sales in New Zealand increased by 25.3% in March compared with a year ago, the best monthly result the market has recorded since November 2007.”
Some 9.5% of all homes sold in December reached values in excess of $1 million while 42.8% of all the homes sold were for less than $500,000, in line with the percentage for this price category in November. ‘With new listings and the total number of listings being at all time lows, and with mortgage lending rates forecast to remain steady for the first half of 2013, the outlook for the early part of this year is for prices to hold on to the gains made in the last quarter of 2012,’ he concluded.