New data reveals values across the country increased 0.1 percent in September. Photo: RNZ
House prices stopped their slide in September - but not everywhere.
Property data firm Cotality, formerly known as Corelogic, has released its latest data, which shows that values across the country increased 0.1 percent in September, the end of a run of five consecutive months of falls.
The national median value is now $810,141.
Chief property economist Kelvin Davidson said the small increase should be viewed in the context of a fall in values of 1.6 percent between April and August.
"You could say it's probably within the margin of error really but I think it's notable in the sense that there were falls over the previous five months so it does mark a little bit of a shift from what we've seen over that period from April to August, which is a fairly chilly winter for property values."
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But he said it was consistent with the wider environment of lower interest rates and higher market activity levels. There was still a reasonable stock of listings available, he said, although the numbers were starting to fall, and the mood was cautious.
"Some economic measures - including filled jobs - are looking encouraging, others are less positive.
"In short, we're not on solid economic ground just yet … It's a wee bit of a shift but certainly not a clear upturn or anything like that."
Cotality chief property economist Kelvin Davidson. Photo: SUPPLIED
Prices were still soft in Auckland and Wellington in particular.
Auckland's values dropped 0.2 percent in the month, 1.6 percent in the quarter and 1.4 percent in the year.
They were still down 22.6 percent from their peak. North Shore and Manukau were particularly weak in the month.
Wellington's dropped 0.4 percent in the month, 0.8 percent in the quarter, 2.1 percent for the year and were 25.1 percent below their peak. Lower Hutt prices were down 0.9 percent in the month.
But Hamilton, Tauranga, Christchurch and Dunedin were all either flat or had values increase in the month.
Apart from a drop in values in Rotorua and a small dip in Whangārei, many smaller centres also recorded increases.
Gisborne was up 2.5 percent.
In both New Plymouth and Invercargill, property values were at least 3 percent above where they were this time last year too.
"We shouldn't get carried away with any flow-on effects from the farming upturn into the provincial property markets, given there's still a degree of uncertainty across the wider economy. But September nevertheless showed a pretty clear urban-rural property market divergence, which we'll keep a close eye on," Davidson said.
"These sorts of markets are starting to see signs of growth in property values and there's been more resilience than, say, a market like Auckland or Wellington - we're seeing that growth in the farming sector which no doubt will be putting some cash into markets like Invercargill or New Plymouth, whereas the service sector is still pretty soft so that will be restraining values in Auckland or Wellington."
He said affordability was still a challenge, too. "It's been taking some time for that pass through of mortgage rates to really get through to existing borrowers but if you think about the near term outlook for those things ... We may get some more rate cuts … it looks like the economy will be turning around next year."
He said there would probably be some house price growth in 2026 but there was still more housing supply than there used to be, so it was unlikely prices would boom.
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