The Hastings district has seen a big drop in average house sale prices for August. Pictured is a residential street in Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
The average house sale price across the Hastings district has dropped to its lowest amount in 19 months, according to the Real Estate Institute of NZ.
However, one real estate expert says because the district
is so large and varied in terms of housing, it is not a fair reflection of how all suburbs are faring.
He also said there had been an uptick in the past 30 days of more people attending open homes across the region including noticeably more first-home buyers.
REINZ’s detailed data for house sales in August was released last week.
It showed that the median house sale price in the Hastings district for August was $640,000, the lowest monthly median price since January 2021 ($580,000).
Despite the dip in prices, it was the second-best month of the year for the number of homes being sold – with 78 homes sold across that district.
Meanwhile, Napier had a median sale price of $820,000 in August (from 92 house sales), which was actually an increase on the three months prior.
Central Hawke’s Bay district had a median house sale price of $510,000 (from 10 house sales).
Low numbers of house sales in Wairoa meant a median house price was unavailable for that region.
REINZ’s median house sale prices can be influenced each month by a number of factors.
For example, if in a certain month a lot of high-end homes sell but the following month a lot of low-end homes sell, it can skew the figures.
However, median house price trends are helpful to give a picture of the housing market, which has seen an overall downward trend this year.
REINZ also publishes a House Price Index, which is another tool to track house price trends and takes into consideration a wider range of data.
That index shows that house prices in Hawke’s Bay are still slowly declining up to the end of August.
Tremains Hastings sales manager Ben Massey said because Hastings district was so large and varied, he preferred to take Havelock North out of the statistics as it skewed the figures.
He said Havelock North’s median sale price had dropped in August 2022 compared to August 2021 – but was still above $1 million.
He said some other areas had in fact increased in the wider district year-on-year.
Massey said he had noticed an increase in the number of people turning up to open homes.
“Just in the last 30 days there are more people appearing at open homes,” he said.
“These are new people into the market.”
Quotable Value registered valuer for Hawke’s Bay, Damien Hall, said banks appeared to be more willing to lend now than earlier in the year.
“The past few months have seen a fairly consistent decline in values month-on-month, but confidence and activity are starting to pick up again now as banks have become more willing to lend.
“But there’s still that uncertainty around inflation and interest rate rises,” he said.
“I do suspect values are beginning to bottom out now, but perhaps there is still a wee way to go.”
August’s median house sale price for all of Hawke’s Bay ($702,000) was very similar to the median house sale price in August 2021 ($698,000). It was a big drop, though, from the peak of the market in November 2021 ($830,000).
Number of house sales by month in Hawke’s Bay
Aug 2022 – 184
July 2022 – 178
June 2022 – 127
May 2022 – 193
Apr 2022 – 127
Mar 2022 – 173
Feb 2022 – 168
Jan 2022 – 124
Dec 2021 – 214
Nov 2021 – 260
Oct 2021 – 241
Sept 2021 – 207
Aug 2021 – 151
July 2021 – 208
June 2021 – 189
May 2021 – 236
April 2021 – 209
Mar 2021 – 255
Feb 2021 – 226
Jan 2021 – 121
Dec 2020 – 255
Nov 2020 – 271
Oct 2020 – 275
Sept 2020 – 263
Aug 2020 – 255
