New regulations haven't dampened Auckland's house price explosion yet

Owning an Auckland house is getting further out of the reach for half the population as prices accelerated again last month.

Although the number of houses being sold was down, the average sale price rose 4.2% to $876,075 – the biggest monthly gain in 20 months, says Barfoot & Thompson, the city's biggest realtor.

The number of sales slowed 7.7% to 986 in the month, the lowest volume since February, the agency said.

Since the government and the Reserve Bank introduced new measures to try and cool Auckland's overheated property market, there has been a measurable drop in market activity, Barfoot & Thompson director Kiri Barfoot says.

"It remains to be seen if prices continue to ignore the tighter regulations, or whether November's prices are the last remnants of momentum that built in the lead-up to the introduction of the tighter measures."

The number of houses that sold in the $500,000-750,000 range - the most popular prices category for investors, with fewer than three properties - slipped 19% to 286 in November from the previous month.

Meanwhile sales of houses in other price ranges were at similar levels to October, Barfoot & Thompson says.

The realtor's new listings in November dropped 7.5% from October to a seven-month low of 1683. At the end of the month, Barfoot & Thompson had 3252 properties on its books, in line with the 3264 at the end of October.

The number of houses sold at auction in Auckland has fallen, with some agencies reporting clearance rates as low as 30%, when they had regularly been around 85$, Quotable Value (QV) says  

QV says the value of investment housing stock appears to have fallen. It noted nearby Hamilton and Tauranga have made strong gains.

(BusinessDesk)