The Reserve Bank NZ, released a Bulletin today which looks at house price trends across New Zealand. Since mid-2012, Auckland house prices have increased 52 percent, but house prices in the rest of New Zealand have increased only 11 percent. The extent of this divergence is unprecedented.
Since 1981, house prices in Auckland have increased much more than those in the rest of New Zealand. House prices in North Island provinces – where house prices have grown the least – are only 63 percent higher than they were in 1981. By contrast, Auckland house prices are 352 percent higher.
Figure 14 shows Auckland house prices as a ratio to those in the rest of New Zealand. High average rates of house price inflation in Auckland relative to the rest of the country have seen this ratio trend upwards since 1981. The extent of the increase in this ratio since 2009 is unprecedented.
An upward trend in this ratio might be expected over time, but it is not clear how steep that trend should be, whether it is time-varying, or whether it will persist. Notwithstanding that uncertainty, the ratio is currently 22 percent above a simple filtered trend. A divergence of this magnitude is also evident when Auckland is compared with urban centres only. This means that the upward trend has not been driven by a more general divergence between house prices in urban and provincial centres, but is an Auckland-specific phenomenon.
In previous instances when the ratio has increased relatively quickly – namely, during the late 1980s and mid-1990s – this has subsequently been followed by a period of lower growth. In 1987, house prices in Auckland increased while they were flat in the rest of the country. Then in subsequent years, Auckland house prices fell while those in the rest of New Zealand continued increasing. In the upswing of the 1990s, Auckland house prices increased relative to the rest of the country, and stayed elevated until the latter part of the 2000s cycle, at which time house prices in the rest of the country increased at a faster pace than those in Auckland.
DFA believes that the same forces are at work here, as in Sydney, London and other metro centres. Lack of supply, high levels of finance available, investors active, foreign investors active, and weak regulatory control. The perfect storm.
