Hawke's Bay house prices remain consistent

There's no sign of Hawke's Bay house prices flattening out yet.

House prices still remain on par as the housing shortage continues to remain prominent in Hawke's Bay.

The median house price for Hawke's Bay sits at $430,000 after a 7.5 per cent rise in July compared to same month in 2017.

REINZ Chief Executive Bindi Norwell said the shortage of properties available for sale across the country was continuing to push house prices up across the country, except for Auckland.

"With July producing another four regions with record medium prices, we desperately need to increase the supply of new houses - be that through KiwiBuild or from private developers and builders - in order to fill the significant shortage of properties around the country," she said.

The number of properties available for sale nationally decreased by 3.8 per cent from 22,123 to 21,288 – a decrease of 835 properties compared to 12 months ago.

Hawke's Bay was one of three regions with the lowest inventory, with a decrease of 16 per cent.

However, during July, the Gisborne/Hawke's Bay region had the highest annual growth rate of 14.6 per cent, followed by Southland in second place with an annual growth rate of 13.1 per cent and Manawatu-Wanganui in third place with a 12.3 per cent annual increase.

Managing director for Harcourts Hawke's Bay Kaine Wilson said there hadn't been any significant changes to the median house prices within the last month.

While there were worries of prices flattening out, Wilson said he couldn't see it happening in the near future.

"Anything like that is normally related to supply and when the supply is still low I can't see that it would head in that direction at this stage.

"I don't see any slow-down in the near future."

Wilson agreed that Hawke's Bay was one of the regions where there was an immense shortage of houses.

"We're just starting to come into spring and at this time of the year we launch our Harcourts Hawke's Bay Arts Festival and that normally generates activity.

Within the next four to eight weeks we generally see volumes coming through, but it's generally a lot quieter for the next couple of weeks."

Wilson said some sellers were bucking the trend to sell their homes in the summer months and were switching to winter.

"The more people that acknowledge to do so, the better off they are. We've had a very good winter turnover, the numbers are slower than the spring months, but the ones that have sold in the winter have seen some very good results."