KEY POINTS:
Auckland's biggest real estate agency group, Barfoot and Thompson, has reported sales volumes fell 56.2 per cent in March from a year ago.
For those sales that did go through, however, prices were holding firm. The average sale price for March rose 5 per cent over the month before.
The crash in sales volumes and a sharp rise in the number of new listings confirms the housing market's biggest city is suffering severe stress as interest rates rise and funding from finance companies dries up.
The news also follows comments from the BNZ yesterday that house prices may be 30 per cent over valued. Last month we at interest.co.nz forecast potential house price falls of 30 per cent and that prices may not recover to the peak levels of November 2007 until 2018 at the earliest.
Barfoot and Thompson said Sales volumes fell to 632 in March from 1,444 in March 2007, while the average price rose to NZ$522,336 in March from NZ$495, 272 in February.
Barfoot & Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson said there was often a price lift in March associated with the end of the financial year, but there had clearly been an easing of prices from the end of last year.
Barfoot and Thompson ended March with 7,379 properties on its books, compared to a monthly average of 4,817 for the whole of 2007.
"From a volume perspective, March was certainly very quiet and the affect seems to have been felt across all sectors of the market from modest first homes through to the million plus category," Thompson said.
Barfoot and Thompson said average weeky rents rose 2.3 per cent to NZ$391 in March from NZ$382 a week in February.
"This is a likely reflection of landlords passing on interest rate rises and other increased costs to tenants," Thompson said.
- INTEREST.CO.NZ
