House price inflation looming
November saw a jump in both house sales and prices.
House price inflation is taking off while sales numbers in November jumped 20%.
The Real Estate Institute was quick to deny the beginnings of a property boom.
Institute chief executive Helen O’Sullivan said the higher volumes followed muted sales numbers for September and October.
“While the data coming from the housing market is generally positive, the volume figures say recovery, not boom as some commentators have suggested. In 2007 the market reported just over 92,000 transactions in the 12 months to December; the 2011 year to date total is just under 56,000 transactions with the month of December yet to come, demonstrating that the level of activity is still well below boom levels. ”
Regardless of the sales numbers, the data showed a record new median price up $8500 to $367,500 (+2.4%) compared with October and up $7500 (+2.1%) compared with November 2010 (the median is the middle number and may be influenced by larger or smaller numbers of sales in higher or lower price brackets).
The new record median house price exceeds the previous record of $365,000 reached in March 2011.
There were 6008 unconditional sales for the month, up 870 sales (+16.9%) compared with November last year. The November figure is 1001 sales higher than October (+20.0%) and rose by 4.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis.
The Auckland median house price also reached a new record of $490,000 in November compared with the previous record high of $479,500 in April 2011. The REINZ Housing Price Index for Auckland is now at the same level it reached at the peak of the market in July 2007, although most other regions remain below the peak.
There have been a large number of auctions with almost 27% of unconditional sales in November being sold at auction, an all time high for the region.
The national median days to sell remained steady at 35 days in November, and is a five day improvement on the 40 days recorded in November 2010.
Chris Hutching
Fri, 09 Dec 2011
Fri, 09 Dec 2011
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House price inflation looming
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