Latest property market update - May

Statistics just released by Realestate for April 2016 show it’s a strong sellers’ market, with the inventory of listings for April showing of the 19 regions measured, all favour sellers by market sentiment - as you can see from the graph below.

In Auckland, weeks to sell fell by 2.78% in April 2016, compared with the same time last year.

Nationally, the inventory of listings is at the lowest level ever recorded by Realestate.co.nz since January 2007. The inventory of listings for all regions in April 2016 was 14 weeks compared to the Long Term Average of 34 weeks.

The majority of the regions are also in a sellers’ market phase.

Star performers include Northland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and Southland.

Northland, Coromandel and Southland recorded a healty increase in average asking prices (more than 5% compared to the prior month of March 2016).

Nearly all the regional centres saw a downward trend in the Inventory of Listings for April 2016 compared to the Long Term Average.

My expectation is that Auckland will keep increasing in value, but at a more moderate rate that we saw last year.

I also expect the other main centres to increase in value along with provincial towns that aren’t affected by a downturn in their local industries.

I think we will be in for an interesting year ahead.