Kiwi Home Prices Wobble!

We got the latest on New Zealand Property for December 2023 from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand.

I love how they spin the release, saying that the December 2023 figures show a notable increase in sales activity, median prices lifting, lower days to sell, and a clear sense of more confidence overall (year-on-year).

This is despite the fact that actually New Zealand house prices edged lower in December, down around 0.3% mom on a seasonally adjusted basis,
though trends diverged across the country, ranging from a 1.9% mom fall in Northland to a 4.2% lift in Tasman.

The national average was weighed down by a 0.9% mom price fall in Auckland. Among other big regions, Wellington prices lifted 0.6%, while prices in Canterbury eased 0.1%.

ASB’s commentary on the REINZ figures are helpful here. They say the NZ housing market has struggled to establish a clear direction since the last housing market correction came to an end in around March/April last year. Monthly price movements have usually been modest in either direction, with the market oscillating between small lifts and even slighter falls over most of the year (see our chart above for the contrast between 2021’s large price rises and 2022’s decent falls with 2023’s more meagre movements).

All-up, prices managed a bounce of only about 1.2% over H2 of last year.

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Author: Martin North

Martin North is the Principal of Digital Finance Analytics

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