News & Research

The New Zealand residential property market has continued to grow in the first month of 2021, though at a reduced rate relative to last month.

Our Property Market & Economic Update for the December 2020 quarter cements evidence from a number of market indicators that investor demand has surged back to 2016 levels, prompting speculation that further intervention by government and regulators might be needed to rebalance buyer activity.

Queenstown was the only main part of the country to really see any noticeable drop in property values after lockdown, but those falls have now been reversed.

The NZ property market has shown no signs of letting up through the final month of the year, with near-record growth registered across the country, according to the most complete and robust measure of property value change, the CoreLogic House Price Index (HPI).

Given that property listings are likely to remain tight into 2021, and that low interest rates are both encouraging borrowing and reducing the incentive to hold cash in the bank, the direction of travel for the housing market will probably remain upwards for at least the first half of next year (assuming no...

New Zealand is in the middle of an unexpected, unpredicted property boom – so who is getting the biggest Christmas present in the form of equity increases?

Once aspiring homeowners have raised their deposit and actually made a purchase, servicing the average mortgage is cheaper than it has been in the past. The problem, of course, is getting that deposit together in the first place – currently taking 8.6 years of saving, versus the average of 7.5.

The NZ property market is one of the most talked about topics right now. Open letters, debate, finger pointing, helpful suggestions – there’s no shortage of any of these things. And the latest CoreLogic House Price Index (HPI) is likely to only add fuel to the fire.

Mortgage lending flows remained very strong in October, with low-deposit investors again a key feature – reaffirming why the Reserve Bank (RBNZ) has jumped early with their plan to reinstate the loan to value ratio rules.

Our Q3 2020 Pain and Gain Report provides more evidence of a strong bounce-back in the residential property market, with profit-making resales increasing nationally to 96.8 per cent or a median national resale gain of $229,000.

It’s definitely been an interesting few weeks in the age-old debate about investors vs first home buyers and who might be preventing who from entering the property market.

Inaugural report reveals first home buyers don’t always start at the bottom of the property ladder

Once you adjust population growth for the average size of a household, the change in the dwelling stock in both Selwyn and Christchurch over the past five years has been pretty much in line with what has been required.