Investor activity muted nationwide, large variations across regions

The latest BNZ-REINZ survey of real estate agents found that while the number of agents reporting increased investor interest stood at a net positive 6% - from negative 9% in August – “at 6% the result is still low.”

“There is little serious evidence that more investors are looking to buy in the current market,” the survey said.

In contrast, the number of agents reporting an increase in first time buyers has been in positive territory for all six months of the survey and hit a record high of a net 37% of agents seeing more first home buyer activity this month.

Over the last two months the survey has also found a slight downward trend in the number of agents that cited investing as the main reason people are buying property, from 0.5% a month ago to 0.4%.

The contrast in investor activity across regions was also highlighted in the survey as agents reported on investor buying activity across the country.

Otago Lakes/Other Mount Maunganui had by far the highest amount of investor activity, with a net 40% of agents reporting investors buying.

Canterbury/Westland and Other West Coast/Queenstown was second with a net 30.8% of agents reporting investors buying.

Other regions with agents reporting significant investor buying activity included Hutt Valley (38.5%), Waikato Country (25%), Dunedin City and Waitakere City (23.1%) and Auckland City (20.7%).

The lowest areas of investor activity included Kapiti Coast (-33.3%), Christchurch City (-29.5%), Whangarei/Northland (-21.7%) and Tauranga (-15.4%).

All of the eight measures the survey uses to examine the current state of the property market strengthened over the past month, indicating “slowly but surely on average things are shifting to a sellers market.”

“This month’s survey results show a market increasingly driven by first home buyers, power slowly shifting toward vendors and perhaps a surge in the number of potential vendors looking to take advantage of this situation by placing their properties on the market.”