The median house price for Queenstown between April 2018 and 2019 has stayed static at $950,000.
There has been a drop in the number of sales for that period from 87 to 63.
There was an increase in listings in April which may lead to an upturn in sales
The previous pressure on buyers to “ buy now” seems to have eased.
In the final half of 2018, 24 % of the properties sold in Queenstown were sold to North Islanders, with the majority being from Auckland. Should there be an Auckland buyer ban?? Perhaps a rebranding from the Overseas Investment Office to the “Auckland Investment Office”? Overseas buyers made up only 9% of total sales.
Westpac’s crystal ball team don’t think there will be another cut to the OCR this year, but think it will be a close call. Interestingly, they predict house inflation to jump to 7% by mid 2020 as a result of the drop in interest rates.
ASB’s team are forecasting a second drop in the OCR later in the year to 1.25% with the next increase not being seen until 2022.
Not quite sure what is happening with Winston Peter’s immigration policy. ASB says that annual net permanent and long term immigration will lift to 64,000, close to the peaks we experienced in mid-2006. They said “If the recent strength in net immigration is genuine and persistent, the upshot will likely be a stronger pace of population growth, domestic demand and labour supply growth than what the RBNZ asserts”.
For the tourism reliant client’s amongst you, they expect an ongoing slowing in the growth of annual visitor numbers. With annual increases from Asia and America slowing and those from Europe dropping.
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