WELLINGTON: New Zealand house price inflation continues to be dominated by Auckland where housing supply isn’t meeting demand.
Auckland’s median house price jumped 13 percent to $720,000 in March, compared with the year-earlier month, outstripping an eight percent rise in the national median price over the same period to $475,000, the Real Estate Institute said in a statement.
Excluding Auckland, the national median price increased 1.4 percent to $350,000 compared with the year earlier, unchanged from February, the agency said.
“The movement in the national median price is almost entirely an Auckland effect,” said REINZ chief executive Colleen Milne.”The underlying demand pressures remain and supply continues to be restrained by low numbers of new listings.”The Reserve Bank estimates Auckland has a shortfall of between 15,000 and 20,000 properties to meet population growth as the country experiences record migration.
Some 8,803 residential properties were sold in March, 20 percent ahead of the year earlier and the highest level since 2007, REINZ said.Auckland March sales volumes increased 21 percent from the year earlier month and were 56 percent ahead of February, the agency said.
Auckland had a record number of auction sales in March, accounting for 78 percent of sales, and had a spike in the number of house sales worth more than $1 million, which helped push up Auckland median prices, it said.
Houses took a median 32 days to sell last month, one day fewer than March last year.The REINZ stratified housing price index, which strips out variations in the mix of high and low-values homes sold, rose 9.5 percent to a record 4,340.9.The Auckland index gained 20 percent to a record, the Christchurch index rose five percent and the Wellington index advanced 3.8 percent.
