NZ: House prices continued to surge higher in November – Westpac

Michael Gordon, analyst at Westpac, notes that the latest data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand showed that the housing market continued to pick up steam in November.

Key Quotes

“The REINZ House Price Index rose by 1.5% for the month in seasonally adjusted terms, the largest monthly gain since August 2016. That result was led by a whopping 2.6% rise in Auckland. On this measure, Auckland house prices have reversed all of their decline in the previous couple of years and are at new record highs.”

“The national house price index was up by 5.6% compared to a year ago, the fastest pace since May 2017. Outside of Auckland, prices were up 8.3%yr.”

“We estimate that house sales were down 2.5% in seasonally adjusted terms. However, given the usual undercount of sales on the first release, we’d suggest they were probably closer to flat. The rapidly dropping number of available listings, and the fall in the average time to sell, suggest that a lack of supply may be hampering turnover in the near term.”