Recovery in house sales tipped after pre-election slump

Photo / APN

Aucklanders flocked to open homes on Sunday, surer of their spending power post-election, and industry bosses are expecting sales to recover with spring now here.

Peter Thompson, Barfoot & Thompson managing director, said with the strong election result agents noticed more people at open homes as confidence returned.

"People have been holding off putting their properties on the market. Already, on Sunday more people were at open homes," he said.

Barfoot figures showed that sales volumes had slumped pre-election and Harcourts also cited the election as being responsible for fewer sales.

Mr Thompson said sales were well down before Saturday.

"Last week, we had 220 sales compared to the same week last year when there were 340."

Spring was also a traditionally strong time for property trading, he said.

Helen O'Sullivan, REINZ chief executive, said more buyers and sellers would move in the next few months, because volumes had slumped just before the election. Spring would just push the market further.

"We've seen the tightness of the stock and volumes down about 20 per cent year-on-year and last month our listing figures were very low.

"We'd like to see the listing figures start to improve. There's new stock coming to the market in Auckland and a lot of building work going on.

"The rate of price growth has levelled out and I think we would probably expect to see that continue. Auckland and Christchurch are the two places with significant price increases and that's driving the national figures and those two areas are the most supply-constrained.

"Prices will continue to increase but at a lot lower rate than at this time last year. I don't see another burst like we have had. We'll be looking for an indication from the Reserve Bank of the end to the LVR regime." She said National's policy on more first home buyer assistance would mean more people being able to afford houses.