While the average price of a home in the South Island is up, volumes are dropping as fewer people are listing their homes as winter arrives, according to realtor Harcourts.
The firm’s CEO, Chris Kennedy, says the average sale price of South Island homes it sold in March was just under $432,000 - up 8 per cent on the same time last year.
He says summer was a busy time across the South Island even though the number of sales dropped 8.6 per cent in the 12 months to March to 267 (292 March 2017).
The firm has 1093 properties listed for sale across the South Island, down 1.1 per cent on a year ago and signed up 286 new listings in March (down 5 per cent on March last year).
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In Auckland the firm saw the average price of a home drop 1.64 per cent to $969,426 in the year to March. During the month Harcourts signed up 644 new properties across the Super City, down 22.1 per cent on a year ago, and it is currently marketing 1850 Auckland properties (1945 March 2017).
Kennedy says: “I think [the] sales activity we normally see crammed into March has this year been spread out over the whole summer period.
“This time last year we were coming out of a particularly busy three or four years of intense growth. What we are seeing now is stability, but still plenty of good activity.”
