Prices up, sales down, REINZ figures show

Despite a reduction in sales, house prices continued to climb during October, according to the latest Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) residential real estate figures.

Friday, November 18th 2005, 3:22PM

The national median residential selling price rose to a record $295,000 in October compared with $290,000 in September and $280,000 in August.

A combination of reduced sales of cheaper properties and strength in the middle and upper markets increased the median, according to the national president of REINZ, Howard Morley.

He said the figures contradicted earlier reports this week suggesting the market had taken a downturn.

“As a result the market is now 16.83% up on the $252,500 median of October 2004, which is an increase on the September year to date increase of 16%”.

Morley said agents reported a widespread shortage of listings throughout the country which had contributed to the fall in sales, which were down from the strong surge to 9186 in September to 8513 in October. However, this was still up on the October 2004 figure of 8191.

Morley said the sales decrease was a little uncharacteristic for the spring period when sales volumes generally grew steadily, however last October had also recorded a sales decrease on the previous month before recovering in November.

“By this time next month we will have a clearer picture whether the recent attempts by the Reserve Bank to use higher interest rates to bring the market back has had any effect. Certainly higher interest rates affect lower-end and new-home buyers and our experience is that the more expensive the houses the lower the mortgages and the less affected owners and buyers are by interest rate increases.”

Morley said the market fundamentals were unchanged and in many areas demand simply exceeded supply. This was evident in regions such as Waikato/Bay of Plenty/Gisborne and in Auckland where economic growth and internal migration meant that there were housing shortages. Sharply increasing building costs were another factor in under-pinning the price of existing residential properties.

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