Houses prices have yet to feel the effect of recent measures to take the heat out of Auckland's property market. Photo / Getty Images
Houses prices have yet to feel the effect of recent measures to take the heat out of Auckland's property market. Photo / Getty Images
Government and Reserve Bank moves to slow Auckland's heated housing market are being cited as having an effect on the market, but prices are yet to react.
QV has just released its latest data showing auction clearance rates plummeting from around 85 per cent recently to as low as 30 per cent and investors showing signs of caution, wanting to see where the market is heading before they buy.
"Home values across the Auckland region continued to show value increases over the past year although the QV House Price index line is starting to shows a less steep gradient which may be indicative of the easing of value increases in the market over the past month," the business said.
James Wilson, QV home-value registered valuer, cited regulatory changes introduced in the last few weeks as having an effect.
Those include tough new landlord lending restrictions as well as new foreign buyer regulations requiring New Zealand bank account and Inland Revenue tax numbers, which enable authorities to keep track of people based overseas purchasing New Zealand houses.
"The recent measures introduced by the Government and the Reserve Bank to address house price inflation could be one of the factors causing a softening effect that is now being felt in the Auckland market for the first time in many months.
"Investors are adopting a wait-and-see approach as they want to see how the market reacts to the recent measures and the decrease in rental yields achievable in the city also appear to be further fuelling the more cautious mentality prevalent amongst buyers," Mr Wilson said.
"The number of houses being sold at auction continues to be well down on earlier this year with some agencies reporting clearance rates as low as 30 per cent when they had been regularly around 85 per cent.
Source: QV
"So far we are not seeing any drastic price easing in the statistics, but we can definitely say that activity is well down on previous months. Whether this will correlate to values decreasing across the board remains to be seen.
"However, anecdotal evidence suggests that value levels among some categories of housing, in particular investment housing stock may have fallen," Mr Wilson said.
Up and up
Price rises remain spectacular.
Values in the former Auckland City Council suburbs rose 22.8 per cent since November last year and 6.1 per cent during the past three months. The average value there is now $1,095,480.
Waitakere City home values increased by 28.4 per cent since this time last year and 6.3 per cent over the past three months. The average home value in the west is now $747,664.
Values in Manukau have increased by 27.8 per cent since November 2014 and are up 8 per cent during the past three months and the average value there is now $796,950.
Home values in the Papakura district values are now 32 per cent higher than they were this time last year and they increased by 8.9 per cent during the past three months.
Franklin district values rose by 19.5 per cent annually and 5.3 per cent during the past three months. Values in the Rodney district were up 18.7 per cent annually and 6.6 per cent during the past three months.
National residential property values for November rose 15 per cent during the past year - the fastest rate since February 2006. Values rose 4 per cent during the past three months and are now 34.1 per cent above the previous market peak of late 2007.
The average value nationwide is now $555,729. When adjusted for inflation the nationwide annual increase drops slightly to 14.5 per cent and values are now 14 per cent above the 2007 peak, QV said.
Values in the Auckland market increased 24.4 per cent annually and 6.5 per cent during the past three months.
Auckland values are now 70.5 per cent higher than the previous peak of 2007. When adjusted for inflation. values are 23.9 per cent over the past year and are 44.9 per cent above the 2007 peak.
The average value in the Auckland region is now $931,807, QV said.
