Average NZ house price on track to hit $1 million by September

PHOTO: The market hit a new high in April, with the average national value up 8.9 percent. Photo credit: Getty Images

The average house price in New Zealand will hit $1 million before year’s end, if recent trends continue.

The latest Quotable Value figures, out Monday, show the average value nationwide is now $913,209 – up 8.9 percent in just three months. At that rate, the $1 million mark will be reached by September.

The average is now more than twice what it was as recently as December 2013, has risen just under $300,000 in two years and is up 37 percent since Labour took power in September 2017.

Despite the Government’s moves in March to remove tax “loopholes” from investors, prices just keep going up, fuelled by ongoing lack of supply and low-interest rates. The pace actually increased in the three months to April, up 21.4 percent in the past year compared to 18.2 percent in the year to March.

“We’ll all just be guessing the impacts of the recent tax changes until we get another couple of months of sales data to analyse,” said QV general manager David Nagel.

“But there’s certainly an expectation that we’ll see at least a slowdown in the rate of value growth, with potentially less investors and maybe a few more first-home buyers entering the market over the coming months.”