Hawke's Bay property prices reach record numbers, but for how long?

Hawke's Bay's median price has increased by almost $170,000 in just the last five years with it now sitting at $493,000. Photo / Warren Buckland

Hawke's Bay property prices continue to reach record numbers but there's been a dip in the amount of sold signs being put up.

The latest stats from Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) Hawke's Bay has seen an annual growth of 10.8 per cent in median house prices, but has also seen a decrease of 8.3 per cent in volume of houses being sold, since March last year.

The same trend was seen nationally with the number of residential properties sold in March falling by 12.9 per cent from the same time last year and the median price increasing by 4.5 per cent to a record $585,000, up from $560,000 in March 2018.

OneRoof Editor Owen Vaughan said he felt the drop off of both the Auckland and Tauranga markets could slowly have an impact on the rest of the regional markets.

"The latest numbers do show a certain amount of skittishness in the market which has already been evident since the end of last year in both the Auckland and Tauranga markets where there has been a slowdown and I think that caution is starting to slowly spread to the regions," Vaughan said.

"It won't heavily affect places like Hawke's Bay where they have been very much in catch up mode, so instead you will see a much slower increase in prices compared to the big price booms of recent years."

Hawke's Bay's median price has increased by almost $170,000 in just the last five years with it now sitting at $493,000.

REINZ chief executive Bindi Norwell said it had been the lowest volume of sales in March for quite some time.

"At a time when sales volumes are normally very strong and total sales figures for the country are typically well over the 7000 mark, with 6938 sales this was the lowest number of properties sold for the month of March since March 2011."

Hawke's Bay decreased in sales from 264 in March last year, to 242 this year with an annual decrease of 22 sales.

But Sales and Leasing Director of Colliers in Hawke's Bay Simon Tremain said that from what he has seen the market is still going strong.

"The numbers from what we saw last year compared to this year have been pretty similar for us," Tremain said.

"But at the moment I believe the market is as strong as ever with there still being plenty of buyers in the market."

He does though believe that the rise of house prices will start to slow up as Auckland prices start to pull back, but still sees Hawke's Bay as the growing market in New Zealand.

"Hawke's Bay is definitely one of the stronger markets, it has been undervalued for many years and now many have caught on and are jumping on it. We're now sitting above markets like Dunedin, New Plymouth and Manawatu when we used to be below them," Tremain said.

He believes Hawke's Bay has the potential to be "that new region".

"Tauranga was that fast growing region but is now starting to slow down and now Hawke's Bay has that feeling of being that next big region."