Northland property owners make $369m gross profit in 2017 from an average 40 sales per week

More than 2000 residential properties were sold in Northland, netting owners $369 million in gross profit. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Northland property owners made a whopping $368.6 million from the sale of their residential properties in just one year, a newly released report has revealed.

CoreLogic's recently released Pain and Gain report measures total gross profit from residential properties sold in 2017.

According to the CoreLogic report, the 2072 properties - almost 40 per week - were sold in Northland last year for a cumulative gross profit of $368.6m.

Of that $217.6m was in Whangarei, $104.5m in the Far North and $46.5m in Kaipara.

The figures are not a true reflection of profit or loss made from property sales as CoreLogic works gross profit by deducting the current sale price from the previous sale price.

Paul Beazley, of LJ Hooker in Whangarei, said there were many factors that came into play when accurately assessing how much profit or loss was made by sellers.

Those included the years passed since previous sales were made and the cost of building materials over the years along with any money spent on the property and whether they had extended a mortgage during that period.

Beazley said the gross profit figures were irrelevant as most people bought properties to live in rather than rent them out.

"Aside from the 2007/08 global financial crisis and the great depression in the 1930s, residential property prices in New Zealand have close to doubled in the eight to 10-year periods.

"Say if you bought a property for $250,000 in 2009 and sold it for $450,000 in 2018, what can you do with the money you've made? Unless you borrow more, you can't buy a superior house.

In the last quarter of 2017, Northlanders made $41.8m from 230 property sales split across Whangarei, $28.6m; Far North, $9.4m and Kaipara, $3.8m

Compared to Northland, the gross profit in New Plymouth in the last quarter of 2017 was $28.4m, Queenstown Lakes district $25.8m, Hastings and Nelson $24.4m each, Rotorua $22.9m, Palmerston North city $21.8m, Napier $14.4m, Whanganui $11.6m, Invercargill $10m, and Gisborne $9.9m.

CoreLogic senior research analyst Kelvin Davidson said the Northland property market and Whangarei in particular was in pretty good shape with the number of properties sold.

"(There are) lots of profits being made, and very few people making losses so certainly no sign here of panic in the market. The economy is growing nicely and the housing market is moving on well."

Whangarei's median profit per sale in the final quarter of last year was $155,750.

Districts that recorded higher median profit than Whangarei over the same period were Auckland ($370,000), Hamilton ($206,500), Tauranga ($227,500), Wellington ($200,500), Rotorua ($175,000), Hastings ($161,000), Napier ($157,400), Queenstown Lakes ($357,500), and Nelson ($160,000).