In 2021, the annual increase in asking price reached 16% by March. The Auckland housing market news was quite iterative of the impressive sale numbers- in spite of a drop in supply by 9%, and a demand increase by 26%, in March. Wellington leads the pack with its highest year-on-year growth, clocking 20% above the average asking price prevalent this time, last year. Auckland prices also climbed by 10% in the same category. Besides the regions of Nelson, Otago, and West Coast, Auckland set new asking price records everywhere; even breaking the million mark.

Is the sky the limit for the Auckland house prices in 2021? Let’s follow the chronology from 2020.

Chronology of the 2020 NZ housing market

As per Auckland housing market news, the Auckland Savings Bank reported a dip of 8% in housing confidence. Hence, the temporary annulment of the LVR mitigated pressure on the banks in 2020 and was a well-received decision. The LVRs were initiated in 2013 to allow no more than 10% of a banking institute’s new mortgages by value to be customers with deposits of less than 20%.

However, the Reserve Bank had decided to postpone the LVR reforms from coming into action for a year. The Auckland housing market updates from May 2020 reflected a 10% hike in prices as a result. The Reserve Bank confirmed that in June 2020, first-time home buyers were credited for a bigger share of new mortgages than institutional/professional investors. July reported its highest house sales in 5 years. 

Auckland median house price average rose in August, along with that of more than half the major property market regions in NZ. The national median house price rose from $580,000 in August 2019 to $675,000 in August 2020- depicting a hike of 16.4%. It further rose to a record-breaking $685,000 by September.

The Reserve Bank started cracking down harder, but that did not stop the house prices from reaching a staggering $749,000 in November, reflecting a year-on-year hike of 19.4%. Even with the Government voicing concerns, first-time home buyers made up 24% of the market share, 3% more than the average. The record was broken for the second month in a row as the prices touched $788,000 in December. Auckland housing market updates suggested that it was only when the Reserve Bank discussed reinstating the LVR policies in February 2021, that the median prices fell by a meager percentage to $780,000.

What lies ahead in 2021?

The pundits expect that the market shall cool off April onwards- What with the newly reformed Loan-to-value ration policies by the NZ government coming into action from May 1st; and, the level 4 lockdown in April playing a spoilsport to successful sales.

House sales numbers in April 2021 depicted a drop of as much as 78% when compared to the data from the same month in 2019.  Experts have remained quite firmly rooted in their expectations from the NZ housing market; despite the spike in the Auckland median house price by the 2nd quarter of the calendar year 2021, after a dip in Feb-March.