Latest Confidence Survey From BNZ

Housing Market Strengthens

Our first BNZ – REINZ Residential Market Survey for 2012 has found a reasonably sharp turn for the better in New Zealand housing market activity.

Each of our eight major measures of housing market strength has risen over the past month to show a residential real estate market attracting more interest from investors, even more first home buyers appearing, buyers becoming more motivated than sellers, and prices more strongly perceived to be rising.

The results gel with media commentary last week regarding accommodation seekers having greater and greater difficulty finding what they want of significant note is a sharp rise in licensed real estate agent perceptions of the number of people going through Open Homes, and price perceptions hitting a record level.

More and more agents are being asked for appraisals however and it will be interesting in the coming month to see if this results in more properties coming onto the market.

Our survey has only been running since April last year so one must be careful in over-reading these results as it is possible that there is simply a seasonal effect running through the data. In that regard real estate data for January to be released by the REINZ in a few days will give some good insight into whether perceptions of agents have been reflected in actions in terms of activity and price movements.

Thanks to Tony Alexander of the BNZ

09/02/12