WELLINGTON (CU)_Over the past year house prices in New Zealand have reported a noteworthy escalation, recent figures have revealed. Historically low interest rates and billions of dollars in government stimulus have seen house prices surge to record levels, making the goal of an affordable, healthy and accessible home more remote.
While the recent changes in market conditions, including the increase in the OCR last week, together with the tightening of loan-to-value ratios and the new tax policies for investors, are expected to lead to a downturn in a selected number of areas, this may not be the case for the Wellington region, where average asking prices in most districts climbed to new records last month, just shy of the $1 million mark in certain areas.
The latest figures published by Trade Me Property show that the average asking price across the area encircling the Wellington City Council surged by 20 per cent to a whopping $982,900. According to Gavin Lloyd, the sales director at the real estate website, although this was not the biggest increase in the wider Wellington region, it was still the capital city’s largest annual increase of all time.
These eye-watering annual increases were also reported from Kapiti Coast, Upper Hutt and Masterton, where the average asking prices reached $914,000, $854,600 and $633,950 respectively. They amounted to an annual increase of 31 per cent in Kapiti Coast and Upper Hutt, while in the latter, it was 32 per cent.
“Following the August lockdown, house prices across the Wellington region charged on in September,” Lloyd noted. “In fact, when compared with August the average asking price in the Wellington City Council area increased almost $40,000.”
Nevertheless, amid the along with the house prices, the number of properties on the market in September also increase for the first time since April. According to Trade Me Property, listings last month were up by 2 per cent from a year earlier.
