The REINZ has released its house price data for December, which revealed that Auckland’s median house price retraced by 1.4% to $840,000 to be up by 9.1% year-on-year, whereas prices outside of Auckland hit a record high, jumping by 1.2% to $420,000 to be up 10.8% year-on-year:
According to the REINZ:
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Wellington led five of the 12 regions to record high median sale prices in December and almost all regions have hit new record median prices in the past three months. Outside Auckland, December saw a new record median price of $420,000…
Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) Chief Executive Bindi Norwell says: “The underlying trends we are seeing are of rising prices across New Zealand, with all regions recording year-on-year increases in the median price. By contrast we are seeing flat or falling sales volumes in many areas of the country.
As suggested above, sales volumes have fallen sharply across new Zealand, suggesting “shrinkflation” is occurring across the pond as well:
Meanwhile, the decline in sales volumes has been concentrated at the “affordable” price points, suggesting first home buyers are having an especially difficult time:
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Between December 2015 and December 2016, the number of homes sold for more than $1 million rose by 12% to 848 homes to equal almost 13% of all dwellings sold. The number of dwellings sold under $600,000 has declined by 884 between December 2015 and December 2016 compared to a fall of 780 for all dwellings.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
