Housing NZ sales are cause of median drop

Philip Kubiak

A senior property broker says house sales prospects are looking positive in Wanganui - despite official figures painting a darker picture.

According to the latest data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, the volume of residential Wanganui property sales in March this year decreased by 5.5 per cent on March 2014.

There were 52 house sales in the third month of the year, compared to 55 in March the previous year.

However, Property Brokers Wanganui branch manager Philip Kubiak said the sale volume figures were slightly misleading.

"Strictly speaking there were actually 60 sales, so if you look at the couple of extra sales that were in suburbs and not normally picked up, it wasn't a bad month at all," he said.

"Our guys are very busy - there had been a lot of activity in the market for our office and there is still a noticeable amount of first home buyers in the market."

The data showed the median price for a residential property in Wanganui had also decreased, dropping 18.3 per cent to $150,500 in March this year from March 2014 when it was $184,150.

Mr Kubiak said low property prices in Wanganui were caused by low value housing sales by Housing New Zealand.

"There are still some low value Housing New Zealand properties being sold month to month and that is just a fact of life.

"Housing New Zealand are trying to encourage first home buyers to get into their first homes but that brings down median sale prices."

Mr Kubiak said there was interest in property from outside buyers which boosted the market but it was evened out by residents in Wanganui selling.

"We are seeing just a little bit more investor interest and first home buyers who are coming from out of town. Equally, having said that, you have got people that are moving out of town as well," he said.

"These are generally retired people going back to live with family in the bigger cities."

New Zealand wide there were 8803 dwellings sold in March, an increase of 20.3 per cent on March 2014. The national median price of dwellings was $475,000 - up $35,000, or 8 per cent, on last year.