QV data shows house prices rose 3.5% in year ended November

By Jenny Ruth

Dec. 4 (BusinessDesk) - Quotable Value says its house price index rose 3.5 percent in the year ended November and by 1.3 percent in the past three months.

The average house price nationwide is now $681,545.

QV’s index is based on settled house sales and calculated on a three-month rolling average basis so its data can include house sales that went unconditional as long ago as August or even earlier.

It lags the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand’s figures which are based on unconditional sales and are therefore a more timely measure of housing market activity – the REINZ data for November is due about the middle of this month.

QV says its partner CoreLogic has changed the methodology underpinning its index to provide less volatility and a more precise measure of value changes.

It says New Zealand’s ‘more affordable’ main centres, particularly Dunedin and the wider Wellington region, continue to grow strongly in a cooling market.

The wider Wellington region recorded a 4 percent quarterly increase and an 8.1 percent annual rise, with buyers attracted to more affordable outer city areas such as Porirua and the Hutt Valley.

The ‘top end’ of the market, areas with average values above $1 million, such as Queenstown, are generally experiencing a cooling in both market activity and price growth.

The Auckland region, which had run strongly ahead of the rest of the country for a number of years, recorded just a 0.4 percent year-on-year growth and a 0.1 percent increase in the three months ended November.

“Our latest insight reflects what we’re seeing and hearing in the market; there is still plenty of activity taking place following the ‘spring surge’ in activity, although value growth is fairly modest overall,” QV general manager David Nagel says.

The average house value in the Auckland region is now $1.05 million while in the Queenstown Lakes District it’s an even higher $1.17 million.

The Wellington region is close to the average at $685,387 while Invercargill is the cheapest with an average house price of $282,705.

(BusinessDesk)

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