Experts pick Auckland house prices to rise further

Posted by MarkL on February 1, 2015

A panel of property experts have predicted Auckland's house prices will continue to rise in 2015, but that the rate of growth may curtail in the second half of the year. 

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Published in the Herald on Sunday today the panel were made up of Quotable Value spokesperson Andrea Rush, Real Estate Institute of New Zealand CEO Helen O'Sullivan, president of the Auckland Property Investors Association Andrew Bruce, managing director of Barfoot and Thompson Peter Thompson and financial analyst Bernard Hickey. 

All of them agreed the growth Auckland house prices had been seeing would continue into 2015 citing factors such as a shortage of supply, low interest rates, net migration, a good economy and job market as reasons.

"Sales turnover is likely to remain buoyant in the first few months of the year. However, the lack of listings will continue to constrain the market.

"Given strong migration, continuing low interest rates, a shortage of housing and good consumer confidence, values are likely to keep increasing throughout the year," Andrea Rush told the Herald on Sunday. 

Helen O'Sullivan added measure taken to increase the supply of houses - such as more land being consented - should start to address supply issues towards the end of the year.

Interests rates are also expected to rise late in the year and migration was predicted to ease and the panel agreed this would have an effect on house prices.

"I'll be looking out for the impact increasing interest rates have on the market. The reason for this is your base costs of owning a house increase. For investors, there will be particular interest in whether the Reserve Bank Governor looks at implementing further tools, targeting property investors," Andrew Bruce told the Herald on Sunday. 

Peter Thompson was bullish about house prices in New Zealand's biggest city, saying all the signs pointed to another strong year. He said something drastic such as an economic downturn would be required to stop the rise.