The Hastings district has seen a big drop in average house sale prices for August. Pictured is a residential street in Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
The Hastings district has seen a big drop in average house sale prices for August. Pictured is a residential street in Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
The average house sale price across the Hastings district has dropped to its lowest amount in 19 months, according to the Real Estate Institute of NZ.
However, one real estate expert says because the district is so large and varied in terms of housing, it is not a fair reflectionof how all suburbs are faring.
He also said there had been an uptick in the past 30 days of more people attending open homes across the region including noticeably more first-home buyers.
REINZ's detailed data for house sales in August was released last week.
It showed that the median house sale price in the Hastings district for August was $640,000, the lowest monthly median price since January 2021 ($580,000).
Low numbers of house sales in Wairoa meant a median house price was unavailable for that region.
REINZ's median house sale prices can be influenced each month by a number of factors.
For example, if in a certain month a lot of high-end homes sell but the following month a lot of low-end homes sell, it can skew the figures.
However, median house price trends are helpful to give a picture of the housing market, which has seen an overall downward trend this year.
REINZ's house price index shows Hawke's Bay house prices are still slowly declining up to the end of August. Photo / Supplied
REINZ also publishes a House Price Index, which is another tool to track house price trends and takes into consideration a wider range of data.
That index shows that house prices in Hawke's Bay are still slowly declining up to the end of August.
Tremains Hastings sales manager Ben Massey said because Hastings district was so large and varied, he preferred to take Havelock North out of the statistics as it skewed the figures.
He said Havelock North's median sale price had dropped in August 2022 compared to August 2021 - but was still above $1 million.
He said some other areas had in fact increased in the wider district year-on-year.
Massey said he had noticed an increase in the number of people turning up to open homes.
"Just in the last 30 days there are more people appearing at open homes," he said.
"These are new people into the market."
Quotable Value registered valuer for Hawke's Bay, Damien Hall, said banks appeared to be more willing to lend now than earlier in the year.
"The past few months have seen a fairly consistent decline in values month-on-month, but confidence and activity are starting to pick up again now as banks have become more willing to lend.
"But there's still that uncertainty around inflation and interest rate rises," he said.
"I do suspect values are beginning to bottom out now, but perhaps there is still a wee way to go."
August's median house sale price for all of Hawke's Bay ($702,000) was very similar to the median house sale price in August 2021 ($698,000). It was a big drop, though, from the peak of the market in November 2021 ($830,000).
Number of house sales by month in Hawke's Bay Aug 2022 - 184 July 2022 - 178 June 2022 - 127 May 2022 - 193 Apr 2022 - 127 Mar 2022 - 173 Feb 2022 - 168 Jan 2022 - 124 Dec 2021 - 214 Nov 2021 - 260 Oct 2021 - 241 Sept 2021 - 207 Aug 2021 - 151 July 2021 - 208 June 2021 - 189 May 2021 - 236 April 2021 - 209 Mar 2021 - 255 Feb 2021 - 226 Jan 2021 - 121 Dec 2020 - 255 Nov 2020 - 271 Oct 2020 - 275 Sept 2020 - 263 Aug 2020 - 255
