REINZ figures show the national median house sale price increased 1.3 per cent year-on-year, from $780,000 to $790,000, and dropped 1.3 per cent compared with March, from $800,000 to $790,000.

For New Zealand, excluding Auckland, the median price of $700,000 was the same as for April last year; month-on-month, it declined 1.7 per cent, from $712,000 to $700,000. The median national sale price has now increased year-on-year for the third consecutive month.

Despite properties selling more quickly, increased stock levels and more listings, sales dropped 17.3 per cent last month from 6,721 in March to 5,559. However, that was an increase of 25.3 per cent year-on-year, from 4,438 in April last year to 5,559 in the same month this year.

All but one region had more year-on-year sales, the exception being the West Coast, where sales dropped 5.3 per cent compared with April last year.

Sales lifted in 15 of 16 regions, compared with April last year. Ten of those regions had increases of more than 20 per cent, with Marlborough at 45.8 per cent, the highest.

Thirteen of 15 regions had year-on-year increases in listings, with nine recording increases of more than 25 per cent. Wellington had the biggest increase, up by 318 listings (69 per cent) year-on-year, followed by Otago, up 107 (55.2 per cent); Marlborough, up 35 (46.1 per cent); and Auckland up 1,034 (41.1 per cent). National stock levels also increased year-on-year, with 18.1 per cent more available properties for sale in April this year.

Nationally, median days to sell declined three days, from 46 to 43 days, compared with a year ago.

The biggest drops were in Tasman, down to 29 days; Marlborough, down to 18 days; Northland, down to 17 days; and Wellington, down to 11 days. In contrast, Auckland had the highest days to sell since 2001, Manawatu-Whanganui since 2015, and West Coast since 2019.

Look At Values

Residential property values have mainly plateaued across the country, QV’s latest House Price Index (HPI) shows.

The average home value increased nationally by just a fraction of a percentage point (0.1 per cent) in the three months to the end of April to $926,772 – a significant slowdown from the 2.2 per cent quarterly home value growth at the end of March.

The national average home value is now 2.7 per cent higher than at the same time last year, but still 12.9 per cent, or $136,993, below the market’s peak in late 2021.

The latest figures show Auckland’s three-month rolling average at -0.7 per cent is negative for the third straight month, with Napier (-0.2 per cent), Hastings (-0.7 per cent), and Palmerston North (-0.1 per cent), following suit in the April quarter. Home values also remained completely flat in Hamilton (0 per cent) and flattened out in Tauranga (0.2 per cent), Wellington (0.6 per cent) and Christchurch (0.2 per cent).

Just Rotorua (3.6 per cent), Dunedin (2.1 per cent) and Invercargill (3.2 per cent) bucked the prevailing trend – although it remains to be seen whether this home value growth will continue as what is traditionally the peak selling season for real estate starts to wind down for winter.

Demand And Prices

Data from realestate.co.nz show a nationwide downturn in demand, while figures from CoreLogic reveal prices dropping.

Nationally, searches on realestate.co.nz’s website per listing in April are down 10.4 per cent, and engagements per listing dropped 7.5 per cent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, prices shown in CoreLogic’s House Price Index data edged down 0.1 per cent in April, with the average value now $933,633, up about three per cent from September’s trough, but still almost 11 per cent less than the peak.

On a regional level, searches per listing on realestate.co.nz were down or static in 13 of its 19 regions, and engagements per listing dropped in 11 regions.

Contributing to waning demand, stock levels were notably high in April – echoing figures from 2015. Up 18.1 per cent on April last year, there were 33,815 homes available for sale.

New listings are also up nationally by 34.9 per cent year-on-year. As this follows an unusually low period in April last year due to weather events, these new listing levels are a return to normalcy rather than indication of a boom.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom for sellers during an economic downturn, CoreLogic data shows.

Below the “flat” national result, the main centres continue to show variability. Dunedin values rose 0.7 per cent in April, with Wellington and Hamilton seeing 0.4 per cent growth. But Christchurch and Tauranga flattened (-0.1 per cent apiece) and Auckland values dipped 0.6 per cent.

Top Rents

Stats NZ figures show the “flow” measure of rentals (for new tenancies) rose just 0.1 per cent in April, but this is a volatile figure.

The “stock” measure of existing tenancies showed a 0.5c per cent rise, which was higher than the 0.4 per cent rise in March. The massive surge in migration is helping fuel rising rental costs.

The annual rate of increase of stock rentals was 4.6 per cent, the same as in March, while the “flow” increase was 4.2 per cent, down from 5.1 per cent in March.

Rentals make up about 9.5 per cent of the CPI figure, so are significant and they are continuing to rise at a rate that is higher than the most recent annual CPI figure, which was four per cent.

Auckland Scene

In terms of Auckland rents, they edged up in the first three months of this year.

Barfoot & Thompson’s rental index shows the average weekly rent for the more than 17,500 properties the agency manages reached $671.35 in March, up 5.69 per cent on the same time last year. This surpasses a 5.27 per cent year-on-year increase in December last year which, at the time, was the highest since 2015.

Across the region, rents rose fastest in the central city apartment market as it continued a post-Covid rebound. The average rent reached $573.74 in March, up 8.56 per cent on the same month last year. Rents rose slowest in Rodney, up 3.75 per cent or $24.23 on March 2023, to $670.07.

By size, one-bedroom properties attracted higher rent rises, up 6.87 per cent on last year, while three-bedroom properties saw less price pressure than other sized homes, up five per cent.

Consents, Costs

Data from Stats NZ show 7,717 new homes were consented throughout the country in the first quarter of this year, down from 9,720, or down 20.6 per cent, in the first quarter of last year, and down from 12,333 (-37.4 per cent) in the first quarter of 2022.

In March alone, consents were issued for 2,931 new homes throughout the country. That’s down 26.2 per cent compared to the 3,971 consents issued in March last year.

At the same time, the average estimated cost of building houses has continued to rise, with the average estimated build cost (excluding land) of new homes consented in the first quarter of this year at $462,654, up $21,978, or five per cent, compared to Q1 last year, and up $68,100, or up 17.3 per cent, compared to the first quarter of 2022.

In the past two years, from the first quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of this year, the average build cost has increased from $2,695m2 to $3,276m2, up 21.6 per cent.

What’s Driving House Prices?

HOUSE PRICES: UP

REINZ data shows April’s national median house sale price increased 1.3 per cent year-on-year, from $780,000 to $790,000, and dropped 1.3 per cent compared with March, from $800,000 to $790,000. For NZ, excluding Auckland, the median price of $700,000 was the same as for April last year; month-on-month, it declined 1.7 per cent, from $712,000 to $700,000. The median national sale price has now increased year-on-year for the third consecutive month.

OCR: STEADY

The Reserve Bank’s official cash rate has been held at 5.5 per cent since July last year after the RBNZ indicated it was at the end of its tightening cycle. It’s not expecting to make changes until next year.

INTEREST RATES: DOWN

BNZ is the last of the main banks to trim fixed home loan rates. All the main banks have dropped their one-year rates, but they are still above 7 per cent, while Kiwibank, TSB, Bank of China, and Heartland have moved their fixed rates below 7 per cent. Westpac is offering its three-year fixed rate at 6.39 per cent and SBS Bank has a carded 5.99 per cent three-year rate.

BUILDING CONSENTS: DOWN

The number of new homes consented in March fell 0.2 per cent after rising 16 per cent in February, Stats NZ data show. Consents were issued for 35,236 new homes, down 25 per cent on March last year. The annual number of new homes consented has continued to decrease from its peak of 51,015 in the year ended May 2022. In the month there were consents issued for 1,251 stand-alone houses, 1,297 townhouses, flats and units, 244 apartments, and 159 retirement village units.

MORTGAGE APPROVALS: UP

March’s new mortgage approvals were $6 billion, up 22.8 per cent from $4.9 billion in February, but when seasonally adjusted, up 2.8 per cent. Annually the value of new mortgages has remained about the same, Reserve Bank data shows. The share of lending to investors in March lifted to 17.9 per cent from 17.3 per cent the previous month. In March last year, the share to investors was 17.7 per cent. Investors took out mortgages totalling $1,080 billion compared to $851 in February and $1,066 billion in March last year, and the average value of a loan increased 7per cent to $514,776. Mortgages to first-home buyers totalled $1,342 billion, up from $1.1 billion in February, but down on $1,245 billion a year ago, while lending to owner-occupiers topped $3,524 billion, up from $2,880 billion in February, and just over $1 billon down on March last year. The average value of new mortgages across all borrower types rose to $369,633 this month, up 8.2 per cent from $341,533 in February. There were 16,327 new mortgage commitments in March, up 13.5 per cent from 14,391 in February. In comparison to March 2023, the number of new mortgage commitments has dropped 2 per cent from 16,657.

IMMIGRATION: UP

Stats NZ’s latest data shows migration added a net gain of 111,145 to the population in the 12 months to March this year, compared to a net gain of 49,684 in the 12 months to March 2019 and 50,932 in the 12 months to March 2018. There were an estimated 238,964 long-term arrivals, and an estimated 127,818 long-term departures. About 78,246 NZ citizens departed long-term in the year to March, compared to 49,572 non-NZ citizens. That means there was a net loss of 52,496 NZ citizens in the March year. This is the first time the annual net migration loss of NZ citizens has exceeded 50,000.