Auckland soars to new record

After several months of falls, Auckland’s average asking price roared back to a record high in February 2016.

In January, it dropped to $828,629, which was down on December’s $848,195.

But now realestate.co.nz’s latest data shows that the SuperCity’s average asking price jumped back up to $866,080 in February.

This was up on the previous record of $851,531 set in September 2015.

It was also a year-on-year increase of 13.3% from February 2015’s average asking price of $764,424.

Realestate.co.nz’s Auckland data is of particular interest as it could indicate that the city’s housing market slowdown may have stopped.

However, Auckland was not alone in hitting a new high in February.

Otago, Hawkes Bay and Coromandel also posted new record average asking prices.

Further, realestate.co.nz chief executive Brendon Skipper said the national average returned to near record high levels in February.

“The national average asking price in February was $565,861, only marginally below the previous record of $568,215 set in August last year.”

However, Skipper said that, while this crop of average asking prices reflected continuing vendor confidence, they had to be seen against a background of relatively low inventory.

“The national inventory of available housing stock sits at 16.4 weeks, which has eased only slightly from January’s record low of 14.7 weeks.”

The long-term national inventory average is 34 weeks.

Meanwhile, the average asking price in both Wellington and Canterbury was down from the record highs they set in January 2015.

The realestate.co.nz data also showed that new listings were up nationwide, to 11,989, in February.

Skipper said this was, a return to expected levels for this time of year following a shortage of supply in December and January.

In Auckland, new listings were up 1.4% from February 2015 to 4,202, which was the highest number of listings for a February since 2013.

This comes off the back of a 18.4% decline in SuperCity listings in January, as compared to the same time last year.