According to REINZ, or the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, the seven year long property market ride may be coming to a close, or at least may have hit its peak in December.
November's numbers for the national median sales here were higher than those posted for December; marking the first time in many months that home sale priced did not increase. In numbers, the residential property market was at NZ $345,000 in December, which is done from NZ $352,000 in November of 2007. This marks a 2 per cent decrease which was unexpected.
Still, even with this data residential property prices rose for the year in total by 4.54 per cent over the previous year.
Many investors use the number of days it takes for a property to sell to forecast what is happening as a true indicator here. The good news there is that the median days to sell stayed firmly at 36 for the month of December.
Experts from the REINZ made note that there are many factors that could have caused this slight slip from the top including a drop in sales due to the holiday break. Additionally, the cost of financing houses here has risen as interest rates have. In addition, immigration has slowed somewhat meaning there is less demand.
During the past seven years, New Zealand has seen incredibly, sustained growth in property sale prices. In that time, property prices have doubled from NZ$170,000 to NZ $345,000. The slight drop in December is said to mark the levelling off from this incredibly growth period.
