Posts Tagged ‘local sales’

There is no single NZ real estate market.

There is a local market in a suburb made up of buyers and sellers who are endeavouring to match each other’s needs – into this market you are considering your entry so be wary of applying country wide trends to your local areas.

It is entirely possible that within today’s market where property prices have trended down by on average 4.4% in the past year (REINZ data Jan 09 year on year % change) you could well find that in a particular suburb at a particular price point the average price may actually be up by 5% or down by 20% – remember the figure of 4.4% price decline is made up of 3,706 properties selling in Jan 09 as matched to 5,186 properties selling in Jan 08.

The other consideration to appreciate is that with such extreme economic conditions a certain number of property sales are clearly distressed sales where the lender has foreclosed on the borrower in a mortgagee sale. The number of mortgagee listings on realestate.co.nz has grow significantly over the past 18 months as a result of these circumstances. These sales often are closed at prices below market average as the seller is not in these circumstances a “willing seller”. These sales which although representing a small percentage of all sales, never the less can effect the average price in the market.

The best judge of property price movements are the local sales reports available on Zoodle – for just $24.95 you get a comprehensive assessment of 20 recent local sales from the local market – just select the property you are interested in and buy the Local Sales Report to enable you to make an informed decision about those 20 local sales – take a walk around that neighbourhood and look at those properties or better still check out each one on Zoodle form the comfort of your armchair.