Over the past three years the median Hawke's Bay house price has grown substantially, having increased by $145,000 from $290,000 to $435,000. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Over the past three years the median Hawke's Bay house price has grown substantially, having increased by $145,000 from $290,000 to $435,000. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Hawke's Bay has been flying high in the ranks of the New Zealand property market for the past few years, but there are signs things are starting to flatten out.
OneRoof's June quarterly housing report shows most of the suburban areas of the twin cities making minimal to no increases to the median house prices in Hawke's Bay since its last report back in March.
Some areas have even seen slight drops.
Napier overall saw no change whatsoever, still sitting at a median price of $495,000.
Hastings overall had a 1.1 per cent increase in three months, now sitting at $470,000 and the rest of Hawke's Bay increased by 4.6 per cent, increasing its median house price by $15,000 to $340,000.
Tremains Hawke's Bay Managing Director Simon Tremain said that the property market itself in Hawke's Bay was still very strong but after years of rapid growth in prices, residents should expect a much slower rise from now on.
"The increase of price over the past three years has been significant and I wouldn't have thought that that median price will be making any big increases anytime soon."
Over the past three years the median price for Hawke's Bay has grown substantially, having increased by $145,000 from $290,000 to $435,000.
He feels that it will be a slow increase from here on in as Hawke's Bay slowly works its way to the national median which currently sits at $577,000, having increased by almost 5 per cent since the last quarter.
While the main centre prices are slowing down, Central Hawke's Bay and Wairoa are still playing catch-up with strong annual growths.
Wairoa has an annual increase of 29.17 per cent while Central Hawke's Bay has been increasing by 21.43 per cent.
Tremain says apart from the slow up in prices the overall market is still acting strong. Photo / Duncan Brown
Tremain says apart from the slow up in prices, the overall market is still acting strong and moving ahead very well.
"The market here is still very strong and it is very much a supply and demand market, last month we sold 97 homes across Hawke's Bay so for us it is still very strong."
Both Napier and Hastings have experienced strong house price inflation after a continued period of strength, having increased 67.8 per cent and 67.9 per cent respectively over the past five years.
That growth has still been consistent in recent time with just in the last 12 months;
Hastings has experienced slightly stronger growth of 11.9 per cent, bringing the median value to $470,000 while Napier wasn't too far behind increasing by 10 per cent to its median value of $495,000.
Harcourts Hastings General Manager James Cooper said that although the median price had slowed down this last quarter, they had still seen a lot of buyers across the board.
"Our team are still seeing strong buyer demand across most price ranges, and this indicates that the buoyancy in the market still remains."
Tremain said that Hawke's Bay was an attractive place for people to invest in, with it being a growing market and one of the most affordable ones in the country.
"We are still very much affordable to most of the country, so we are very much in a great place with interest still coming in from outside of the region as well."
