PHOTO: Tony Alexander. FILE
REINZ MEDIA RELEASE – REPORT
Welcome to the REINZ & Tony Alexander Real Estate Survey. This survey gathers together the views of licensed real estate agents all over New Zealand regarding how they are seeing conditions in the residential property market in their areas at the moment. We ask them how activity levels are changing, what the views of first home buyers and investors are, and the factors which are affecting sentiment of those two large groups.
This month we have seen slight decreases in the net proportions of real estate agents around New Zealand reporting more attendance at auctions and Open Homes, and presence of first home buyers and investors. It is possible that the restoration of LVR rules by banks may have encouraged some backing off of buyers with limited resources. However, it is also possible that some people may simply be getting tired of weekends in a row spent attending Open Homes and frequent presence at auctions. Support for this possibility is seen in the fact that an unchanged net 88% of agents still report the presence of FOMO (fear of missing out) on the part of buyers. Additionally, a still very high net 88% of agents see prices as rising in their location, only 12% report that buyers have employment concerns (down from 48% in June), and just
49% report that buyers are having difficulties getting finance. This last proportion is up from 43% in November, but below results from July to September.
We have now passed the traditional Spring peak in real estate turnover in New Zealand, and summer is approaching with plenty of people adopting a view that Kiwis will be celebrating their freedom from Covid-19 by travelling extensively around the country. If so, this might see some determined buyers back off from their home markets for the next 4-8 weeks. But it may also mean some interesting property demand appearing in traditional holiday locations around the country.
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE: Tony Alexander_Report_December_2020
