Napier market trends positively

All Napier’s market indicators are trending positively. Sales turnover is now averaging over 100 sales per month, which is 10% above the 10 year average.

The biggest improvement is the average days to sell which, at 25 days, is the first time it has fallen below a month since April 2005. Properly priced properties sell relatively quickly, often with competing offers.

The median price is sitting at around the $330,000 which Quotable Value tells us is an improvement of 2.2% compared with last year. Hastings and Central Hawkes Bay prices improved much more significantly at 6.1% and 8.8% respectively. Well-presented homes tend to attract a premium.

In the middle and lower end of the market demand is being stimulated by low interest rates and benefits to first home buyers. Buyer activity is also being boosted by positive immigration into the region, and out of town investors seeking better returns than metropolitan areas provide.

A lack of properties available for sale is not only limiting buyer choice, but constraining the scope of potential house sales in the months ahead. This data means that sellers can put their house on the market with confidence.

Over 93% of Hawkes Bay properties sell by Private Treaty, with the few remainder sales evenly divided between Auction and Tender. These latter methods of sale are not favoured by local purchasers who overwhelmingly want a clear price indication. Most importantly for sellers, those strategies could mean losing the best buyer who wants to buy now, rather than being forced to wait for a later date.

Although consumer confidence appears to be easing, households don’t appear to have been spooked as much as businesses by drops in dairy prices and uncertain global economic prospects.