Review of the property sales market in the Motueka area for March 2011

March 16
By Alan Atkins, Ray White Motueka

[Editor's note: Ray White Motueka is the Principal Sponsor of Motueka Online, and one item of assistance it provides is a regular, general update on the state of property sales in the area. The reports do not contain any promotion of Alan's company, but are provided purely for informational purposes]

The national housing market staged a modest recovery in February in terms of both prices and volumes during the month. Across the country 4,502 unconditional sales were reported, a 38% increase over the prior month. The national median price increased $10,000 from January to reach $350,000.

"Overall, the data is a bit of a mixed bag," said REINZ CEO Helen O'Sullivan. "February's transaction volumes were always going to be an improvement on January, but the improvement in the medians in most districts is a positive sign."

The economy is yet again showing us that it is an unpredictable beast, completely at the mercy of the natural world. A pleasant surprise for those on floating rates to have them drop over the last week. No response yet from the real estate market if this drop in increase rates will have an immediate effect, but we are expecting it will make it easier for a number of people to enter the market or trade up.

Generally speaking the Nelson region for February was fairly static, with the only outstanding statistic was a drop in average number of days on the market to sell a property. Closer to home, using our own in-house statistics we to noticed a drop from 103 days for January sales to 83 days for February sales.

This shorter period to sell was rather mismatched with a small drop in sales prices against the 2008 capital value. This statistical shorter period to sell appears to be due to sellers deciding to come down a bit to meet the buyers. It will be interesting in light of the lower interest rates to see if this trend remains over the next couple of months.

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