News & Research

Existing owner-occupiers are largely staying put at present, with first home buyers and especially mortgaged investors raising their market shares (as well as the number of purchases).

The 2020 General Election is fast approaching and even in normal years elections tend to create some uncertainty in the economy and the property market, with investors often finding themselves staring down the barrel of some kind of new tax or regulatory change. But of course, this isn't a normal year.

Recent events are clearly starting to take a toll on property rents in Queenstown, which have fallen by 10% since the same time last year. There are also a few other pockets of weakness across the country, although so far most areas have seen rents hold up pretty well.

The latest research from Auckland Cityscope shows that property sales value have decreased over the past three months. 

According to the July 2020 QV House Price Index (HPI) results out today, property values recorded a marginal increase, up 0.2% over the month. This is somewhat of a turnaround from June, after the national index edged 0.2% lower.

It’s obviously been an unprecedented year for the economy and property market so far in 2020, and unfortunately we’re not out of the woods yet.

The CoreLogic Buyer Classification series has shown that ‘movers’ (i.e. existing owner occupiers who are moving house) are relatively quiet at present, accounting for just 26% of NZ-wide property purchases in Q2 – the norm for this buyer group is closer to 30%.

Mortgage lending in May wasn’t as strong as we had been anticipating, but the lost ground was well and truly recovered in June, with $5.4bn of new loans on a par with the same month last year. This is yet another indicator which signals a return to some kind of normality in the economy and property market....

If we’re right and there’s only about 70,000 property sales this year (versus almost 90,000 last year), gaining market share will be an important consideration for many firms in the sector. Investors have had a rising presence lately, so could be a segment for banks and insurers etc to focus on. Similarly,...

It’s obviously been an unprecedented year for the economy and property market so far in 2020, but it’s at least been reassuring that the number of appraisals generated by real estate agents, for-sale and for-rent listings, valuations ordered by banks, mortgage lending flows, and agreed sales activity have all...

On our quarterly index, which is based on agreed sales each quarter, national average house values recorded a fall in the COVID-affected Q2 period as a whole. Of course, price falls shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise, given the recession and rising unemployment.

The latest research from Christchurch Cityscope shows that commercial property sales’ value in Christchurch’s CBD has decreased in the past three months.

This Pulse takes a break from COVID-related analysis and looks at the CoreLogic Buyer Classification data relating to property type.