Price growth flat – bar apartments

Auckland apartment prices have bucked the stalling growth trend to hit a record high, new realestate.co.nz data shows.

Tuesday, December 1st 2015, 11:28AM

by Miriam Bell

The average asking price for an Auckland apartment reached a new high of $660,001 in November 2015.

This is an increase of 31.5% from $500,000 in November 2014 – which is almost double the increase in asking price for Auckland houses (16.8%) over the same period.

Realestate.co.nz CEO Brendon Skipper said the asking price of Auckland apartments has increased strongly and steadily over the last 24 months.

Auckland dominates the national apartment market, accounting for 71.9% of apartment listings nationally.

For this reason, the increase in asking prices for Auckland apartment has been a strong driver for the national average asking price, Skipper said.

“The national average asking price has now breached the $600,000 mark for the first time - only eight months after it first broke the $500,000 barrier in March.”

Price growth in the apartment market might be on the rise, but the same cannot be said for the national asking prices overall.

The realestate.co.nz data shows the national average asking price of houses for sale has stalled.

While it went up by 1.4% from October and is now sitting at $547,515, this is below the record high of $568,215 recorded in August 2015.

In November, the country’s main centres all returned lower asking prices than those in recent months.

In Auckland, the average asking price of $849,882 was down on the high of $851,531 hit in September 2015.

In both Wellington and Canterbury, November’s average asking prices were $10,000 lower than the record highs achieved in August and September respectively.

However, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Coromandel all went against the national trend and achieved record high average asking prices in November.

In Waikato, the average asking price was up to $413,067, as compared to $403,640 in August 2015.

In Bay of Plenty, the average asking price hit $487,025, as compared to $481,730 in October 2015.

In the Coromandel, the average asking price went up to $554,303, as compared to $539,597 in September 2015.

Skipper said it is significant that the areas where asking prices are at record highs are all within striking distance of Auckland.

“There have been strong indications over recent months that Aucklanders are house hunting further afield, which is helping to raise the expectations of sellers in these neighbouring regions.”

Nationally, there were 5.6% less new listings in November than there were at the same time last year.

While Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury all had fewer listings than in November 2014, the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Coromandel again bucked the trend.

All three of these regions had the most new listings for any November in at least five years.

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