The Trusted Advisor – Property Report July 2019

National
For the first time in 8 months properties sold in NZ increased on an annual basis suggesting that there are early signs of growth - looking forward this will be supported by interest rates set to stay low for some time, increasing population and warmer weather coming
Nationally sales up to $500,000 make up 39%, $500,000 to $700,000 = 31% and $1mill plus = 13%
National inventory up 3%
Days to sell 40
Auction method successful for just 9% of sales
Median house price up 4% to $575,000
Auckland investors have been moving away from buying in the regions and are no longer an influence in Hamilton Tauranga Queenstown and Dunedin
The Auckland market appears to be stabilizing and showing signs of life again
Existing owners relocating homes are at their lowest level in 8 years @ 27% possibly due to the large amount of money required to trade up. Renovation alterations and additions are the order of the day with Councils receiving high levels of consent requests
 
Marlborough
A great sales month locally with sales up 14% on July 2018 placing Marlborough in the top 5 in NZ
$38.1 million of sales with a median of $433,000
The median price has been soft for 4-5 months now reflecting the strong interest and sales in the first home buyer bracket.
We are also seeing a drop off in sales from $600,000 upwards for the last few months so if you have a property for sale in that bracket you may need to be patient
As salespeople we feel like there is a critical shortage of listings but the statistics tell us that we had 34 more properties on the market than in July 2018. 
Lower priced properties coming to the market are selling quickly and the average number of days to sell are at 38
With the warmer weather just around the corner we are expecting to see more listings come on board in the next few weeks
1 & 2 bedroom units continue to sell quickly and for great prices.
The Government has abandoned Kiwi Build for social housing and this includes Marlborough with several projects underway or getting set to go. This will be great for Marlborough with an injection of government money and increasing new housing stocks
With the talk of a recession coming and the government seemingly hell bent on making things tougher for landlords now would be a good time for  property investors to look  at their portfolios and make some decisions for the future
The good news is that it would appear that rents will keep going up. 
It also looks like we will go from a so called housing crisis into a rental property crisis – there wont be enough and the rental prices will be too high
 
Regards
 
 
Ian Fyfe
Licensed Salesperson rea 2008