Friday 8th of September 2006

The median dwelling sale price fell from $487,000 a month earlier to $483,000, but was up by 6.8% from a year earlier. On average in the three months to August the median dwelling sale price was up by 1.3% from the three months to May indicating continuing rising house prices at a relatively slow pace.
Bank of New Zealand economist Tony Alexander says it is possible to get a feel for whether the slowing in house price inflation is due to a deficiency of buyers or sellers by looking at data on the number of listings.
“In August the number of listings was up by 10.7% from a year ago at 4,417. The ratio of sales to listings in the month was 21.2% and this compared with 24.9% a year ago.
“The ratio was in fact the lowest since August 2001 and while the anecdotal feedback we are receiving from the real estate market indicates that there are many buyers around this statistic suggests that there are also a large number of sellers.
Perhaps of more concern for investors is that the average weekly rent declined to $340 from $354 in July and was up by just 0.6% from a year earlier.
The number of properties freshly let was down by 12.2% from a year earlier indicating some weakness in the rentals market.
Barfoot director Peter Thompson says the upper end of the residential property market was active during August with more than 25% of properties (by value) sold by his firm fetching more than $750,000 and 16% (by value) fetching more than $1 million.
“The upper end of the market was clearly particularly active – 16% of sales (by volume) over a $1 million is the second highest on record.”