By Deanna Harris
The Christchurch earthquake is a huge blow to the areas housing market according to QV.
“The Christchurch earthquake is obviously going to have a major impact on the housing market in that area. It is still too early to tell what this impact will be as the full extent of the damage is still being assessed” said Whitehead.
According to the QV residential property indices for August property values across New Zealand have continued the gradual decline see over the last few months.
Values have dropped 1.1 percent since March this year after rising 4.3 percent in the previous seven months. As a result, values are still 3.1 percent above the same time last year, but the gap is continuing to close. Values are now 5.0 percent below the market peak of late 2007.
“The volume of house sales continues to be at relatively low levels, as has been the case for several months now. While the number of sales is still slightly above the same time in 2008 during the worst of the recession, they are well below last year and the long term average” said QV Valuation Manager Glenda Whitehead.
While values have declined according to the QV index, the average sales price increased slightly from $407,191 to $409,700. This increase in average price is due to relatively fewer sales of lower value properties over recent months.
All the main centres are showing a similar pattern over the last year with values increasing through until March then easing since. Apart from Hamilton and Tauranga, values in the main centres are still above the same time last year, although the gap is rapidly closing.
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