A view over housing in Napier. Photo / Warren Buckland
Napier’s housing market has reached a near three-year low in terms of the average price homes are fetching, as the median price dipped to $645,000 for the month of July.
That median house price for Napier was the lowest since October 2020 when the average sale price was $620,000, according to REINZ.
The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) released its monthly housing report on Tuesday which showed 171 homes sold across Hawke’s Bay during the month of July, including 86 in the Napier district.
The median house sale price was $662,000 for all of Hawke’s Bay and $645,000 for Napier.
Sotheby’s International managing director for the central region, Fraser Holland, said a number of cheaper units had sold around Napier and had likely impacted that figure.
“The thing with medians is it is the midpoint,” he said.
“There were a dozen small apartments or units that sold for under $450,000 in Napier.”
He said those apartments, the bulk of which were in Tamatea and Pirimai, were “swinging your median price point in Napier for July, without a doubt”.
REINZ also uses another tool to better track house price trends called the House Price Index, which takes into consideration a wider range of data.
That index shows that while house prices have been falling in Hawke’s Bay since the end of 2021, prices are showing signs of stabilising.
“There has actually been a little bit of a bounce back relative to the other regions,” Holland said, of Hawke’s Bay.
He said in the Hawke’s Bay real estate market at present, there were a lot of people who were going through difficult circumstances, such as moving on from the cyclone or facing financial stress from factors like increased mortgage rates.
“There is a lot of hurt out there and a lot of people wondering what they are doing in rebuilding their lives, let alone their homes,” he said.
“You have to be kind and remember that everyone has very different things going on behind their fence.”
Twenty homes in the Napier council area have been provisionally deemed Category 3, around Bay View, which means they are in an area no longer deemed safe to live in.
REINZ chief executive Jen Baird said the number of homes for sale in Hawke’s Bay had declined.
“Local salespeople have noted that housing stock has been declining, which may – depending on future listing numbers – see prices lift in the region, especially in the first-home buyers’ sector.”
Meanwhile, the average house sale price in Hastings district in July was $738,000, in Central Hawke’s Bay it was $582,000, and figures for Wairoa were not available due to low sale count.
Gary Hamilton-Irvine is a Hawke’s Bay-based reporter who covers a range of news topics including business, councils, breaking news and cyclone recovery. He formerly worked at News Corp Australia.