KEY POINTS:
The median house sale price fell 1.1 per cent in April and the volume of sales collapsed 46 per cent from a year ago, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) said today in its latest monthly report.
The industry body commented for the first time that prices were trending down and the market was in a slump.
The national median price fell to NZ$345,000 in April from NZ$349,000 in both March of 2008 and April of 2007. Sales "collapsed" to 4,464 in April, down 45.5 per cent from the same month a year ago. This was the lowest monthly sales figure since the current series of data began in 1996.
"We thought that the March sales figure of 5,129 was low, due to a short month because of an early Easter, but April shows that the loss of confidence in the housing market is deeper than we had anticipated," REINZ President Murray Cleland said in a report titled: "Residential property sales slump further".
Cleland pointed to a particular slowdown in Auckland, where sales fell 52.5 per cent to 1,350.
"Auckland seems to be most affected by the loss of confidence, and it does tend to be something of a barometer of the market being the first to rise in good times and the first to fall when things turn sour," Cleland said.
"About the only glimmer of hope was the fact that a number of regions saw their median prices recover, suggesting that the March figures were something of an aberration. However the trend overall is for declining house values", Cleland said.
This is the most pessimistic comment Cleland has made since the slowdown in the housing market started in late 2007.
Other notable features of the result were;
An increase in the average number of days to sell nationally to 44 days in April from 40 days in March and 28 days a year earlier.
Just 72 properties sold in Central Otago Lakes, including Queenstown, with the average days to sell in the mountain resort area blowing out to 86 days from 48 days in April. This increase of 38 days in one month suggests that only those on the market for the longest period sold and had to be sold at firesale prices. The median price dropped 5.4 per cent to NZ$454,000.
Auckland city prices, which includes CBD apartments, fell to a median NZ$463,000 from NZ$510,000 the previous month, implying many apartments were sold at fire sale prices
However, the median price in metopolitan Auckland rose to NZ$445,000 from NZ$440,000 in March.
- INTEREST.CO.NZ
