PHOTO: CoreLogic – Whanganui River
Measured by the share of its property stock that has changed hands in the past year, Tararua has the country’s busiest property market. Given that, it’s no surprise that average property values there have been rising strongly, up by 24.2% in the year to June. A cluster of other ‘affordable’ areas in the lower North Island make up the bulk of the remaining top 10 areas for turnover rates, including Whanganui and Palmerston North. By contrast, areas such as Rotorua and Gisborne have had far lower turnover. Yet with property values also rising in these markets, the lack of sales is linked more to a limited supply of listings rather than soft demand.
CoreLogic Senior Property Economist Kelvin Davidson writes:
At about 85,000 on an annual basis, the number of residential property sales across NZ is currently running at a restrained level, as affordability pressures continue and mortgage availability remains controlled. But within that relatively quiet environment, where are the hotspots?
To look at this, we’ve calculated turnover rates for each territorial authority, i.e. the number of sales over the past year as a % of the area’s dwelling stock (excluding any areas that haven’t had at least 250 sales in the past 12 months). And the result is that Tararua takes the crown as the busiest market recently, followed by Waipa, Selwyn, and Waimakariri (see the first chart). A bunch of six other areas all concentrated in the lower half of the North Island round out the top ten.
READ MORE VIA CORELOGIC