Business

New records for housing prices

14:53 pm on 1 May 2015

The latest figures from Realestate.co.nz show the average national asking price for homes has hit a new high of nearly $522,000 dollars in April.

Photo: 123RF

Meanwhile, new listings have fallen 5.6 percent last month from a year earlier, to 9,673 - the lowest April on record.

In Auckland, the average asking price has also reached a new high of nearly $790,000, up 3 percent from March, while the latest figures from QV for April show Auckland's average home value is now more than $800,000.

The chief executive of the industry-owned website, Brendon Skipper, said most parts of the country other than Auckland saw either little change or falls in the listed price.

Mr Skipper said the average asking price in Wellington dropped 1.4 percent, to just over $450,000, and Canterbury fell 0.8 percent, to around $460,000.

An economist at the ASB Bank, Chris Tennant-Brown, said the low number of houses coming onto the market in Auckland was likely to keep driving the asking prices higher.

A spokesperson for QV said, with net migration at record levels and with about 50 percent of migrants moving to Auckland, the city's home values are likely to keep rising this year.

Nationwide residential property values for April increased 8.3 percent over the past year, and 2.6 percent over the past three months.