PHOTO: MONIQUE FORD/STUFF House prices are expected to fall – but how much?
New Zealand’s property market is on the brink of a material drop in prices for the first time in nearly 12 years, real estate data firm QV says.
It has released its data for May. QV records information from legal sales, so has more of a lag than the Real Estate Institute statistics, which come from unconditional deals.
But QV general manager David Nagel said there were already signs of a shift in the market and a disconnect in expectations was developing between vendors and purchasers.
“The last time the residential property market experienced a period of sustained decline was following the GFC where residential values fell almost 10 per cent over a six-month period in 2008.
Economists have predicted house price falls of anything up to 15 per cent as a result of Covid-19 – although the Reserve Bank warned prices could halve if New Zealand had to go back to alert level 4.
Nagel said the May data did not illustrate the dramatic impact Covid-19 had on the real estate sector since the country went into level 4 lockdown in March.
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