Welcome to this weeks wrap on North Shore property. To view our full weekly email click here.
Another wet and windy Saturday morning, a good excuse to stay inside and relax!
In This Week’s Market Wrap
– New listings before Xmas
– Loan to Value Ratio Changes coming
– Open Homes & New listings
– Auction rates
New Listings Before Xmas
Yes we have a few more exciting homes due to hit the market before Christmas. If any of these peak your interest, be sure to get in touch!
Aberdeen Road, Campbells Bay – A stunning fully renovated 4 bed 2 bath townhouse on freehold land with stunning views out to Rangitoto. Priced in the mid $1’s.
Milford Rd, Milford – Another stunning fully renovated 3 bed 2 bath home in an amazing location. A perfect lock-up and leave or downsize option with a lift! Priced in the mid $2’s
1/18 Nile Road, Milford – A gorgeous 1920’s 3 bed character home with a sleepout or fourth bedroom. Price in the early $1’s. Click here to view!
Loan to Value Ratio Changes coming
In the RBNZ Financial Stability Report released on Wednesday the RB noted the slowing in mortgage lending growth and house price inflation. In response they have cut the minimum deposit requirement for investors from 35% to 30% (having cut it from 40% a year ago). And banks may now have up to 20% of their lending to owner occupiers at less than 20% deposit. This had been 15% from the earlier 10% percentage of volume limit.
Will these changes spur the housing market? Not really, at least they certainly won’t lead to large rises in house prices. But they may help to get us out of the lull we are currently in here on the Shore. Which is worse than probably expected as the perceived potential impact of the AML and OIA changes affect buyers confidence in the market, combine this with a lot of stock coming on and falling clearance rates, and confidence certainly isn’t getting any better.
Add to that Chinese not being able to get money or lending and first home buyers not being able to bid half the time at Auctions thanks to tighter bank restrictions, and this is where we are. Quiet open homes, lower clearance rates, and falling house prices, generally speaking – not always the case though.
The changes should bring some stability back to what currently feels like a decline. Remember when they imposed the changes as the market was rising? They were never to bring house prices down, they were just to slow the growth and stabilise the market. Now it’s the reverse.
But they are important and whilst these rules don’t affect all price brackets directly, as those in the higher brackets aren’t generally affected by LVR’s in terms of finance capabilities, they will have a flow on affect. If a $1m Vendor can’t sell, they can’t buy at $1.3m, and if they can’t sell, they can’t buy at $1.6. If they can’t sell at $1.6 they can’t downsize, and so on and so forth.
In short, we are pretty confident things will be a bit better next year once people have got their head around the AML, these changes start to have some effect, and people realise the OIA changes aren’t going to collapse the housing market and life will continue. Plus, the record low interest rates we talked about last week, with no predictions of tightening anytime soon. Happy days ahead!
Open Homes & New Listings
Listings are starting to tighten, finally!! We now have around 1850 properties available on the Shore, down from over 1900 a week ago. This is good, this is still loads, but we need to start seeing this number fall.
30 Visits across 11 Properties last week – That’s just really average!!
Weather plus black Friday sales having some affect – but it is becoming the norm. Reports from all our agents came in the same, with the odd property here and there getting a lot of attention. Apart from X factor stand out homes, there has really been no rhyme or reason to explain why a few are really busy while most a really flat.
Breakdown: 61% European, 29% Asian/Other 90% owner occupiers (either upsizing, downsizing or changing area) 10% investors
Cooper & Co Auctions
I almost wanted to leave this section out this week, as we saw some of the worst clearance rates all year last week. C&C called 23 Auctions selling 7 at a rate of 30% which is pretty low by our standards, but has been know to happen from time to time.
It’s the other guys really, B&T called 34, and sold 4…
The Harcourts current 4 week average sits at 39% sold under the hammer.
That’s it from me, if you have any questions as always just give me a call, otherwise have a great weekend.
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