Price softening in Auckland real estate not surprising

Media release

Century 21 New Zealand

Thursday, 13 August 2015

Price softening in Auckland real estate not surprising

Century 21 New Zealand’s National Manager Geoff Barnett says he’s not surprised to see that the median sales price in Auckland has levelled out this winter. His comments follow the release of the latest REINZ statistics which show the Auckland median house price has fallen in July by -2.65% compared to June.

Mr Barnett points to many people now delaying their purchases hoping to see further decreases in interest rates and the impact of the Responsible Lending Code which came into effect on 6 June.

“Since the code came in it’s certainly getting harder for many people to borrow or bridge huge sums of money. And in fact we’re also experiencing many people holding back and seeing what the Reserve Bank delivers on 10 September and 29 October as far as the Official Cash Rate announcements go. The smart money of course being on the fact that mortgage rates will probably fall further in the third quarter,” he says

“Rest assured we’re still getting plenty of buyer enquiries and people through our open homes this winter and in fact for many Century 21 offices this has been their busiest winter in a long time.

“While there has been plenty of gains in Auckland overall in the past year, I’m not surprised to learn that we’re now seeing a slight softening as far as the median house price goes this winter. For many borrowers the money is now a bit harder to get, while others are waiting to see what happens to interest rates,” says Mr Barnett.

International real estate agency business Century 21 has 20 offices in New Zealand, over 250 offices in Australasia and over 7,500 offices in 80 countries worldwide. Its global websitewww.century21global.com has listings from all over the world that can instantly translated into 16 languages.

ENDS

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