Early signs of market change: QV

It has released its statistics for November, which show that nationwide values have risen 9.2% over the past year and 2.5% over the past three months.

Auckland is up 15.2% on the year before. Waitakere still has the fastest annual increase in Auckland of 19%, followed by  North Shore at 16.8%. The city as a whole is 8.1% above the previous peak when adjusted for inflation.

Research director Jonno Ingerson said there were early signs of a change in the market, such as fewer potential buyers at open homes, longer marketing periods and fewer properties selling on auction day.

"In the last three months there has been an increase in the number of completed sales to first-home buyers. Some of this activity will have been due to people trying to purchase before their pre-approval expired. While there is anecdotal evidence of far fewer first-home buyers in the market this has yet to come through in the statistics."

He said a slowdown in Auckland could be due to people waiting to see what the LVR restrictions did to the market.

But Ingerson said any cooling in Auckland was likely be temporary because of the supply and demand imbalance there. Other areas might not get off so lightly.

"In areas of the country outside Auckland and Canterbury, where there is not as much of an imbalance between supply and demand, the LVR changes are likely to have a more marked impact. The reduction in first-home buyers will lessen activity and the reduced demand should see values slow down."

Christchurch’s values are up 12.4% on last year. But Hamilton’s values are up 5.5% over the past year, Tauranga is 3.5% and Wellington 3%.

Most of the provincial centres are still experiencing growth, although it is limited in some areas.  In the North Island, Whangarei, Thames-Coromandel, Taupo, Rotorua, Gisborneand Palmerston North are all up over the past three months. Gisborne has seen the highest increase of those regions, having grown 2.9%.

In the South Island, nearly all regions have experienced growth over the past three months, although there are exceptions such as Queenstown Lakes, which had a 0.8% decline.  Southland and Gore have had some of the larger increases, with 4.4% and 3.9% increases respectively.   

The market would likely go quiet over Christmas, Ingerson said, and the direction it was heading might not be obvious until March.