NZ residential rental market news, March 10

Wellington prices keep dropping, online buyers cool and International Women's Day brings insights

The bullet points from this week:

Wellington house prices continue to drop, wiping out huge pandemic gains

Wellington house prices have dropped by 3.4% in the last quarter, resulting in an annual drop of 21%. 
Stuff reported in January that two-thirds of Wellington homes bought during the peak of the market are in negative equity. 
Though Wellington house values are higher than they were pre-pandemic, when you factor in inflation, those gains drop to zero, with prices still falling.  
Values continued to decrease in the Wellington region throughout February, with buyers having plenty of choice and no pressure to rush their decisions. 
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Online property seekers are not rushing to buy this year

Only 21% of the people looking at property online plan to buy, according to a Trade Me survey of 2200 people who searched for property on the site.
55% of investors said it was a good time to buy, but they made up just 10% of the respondents.
The biggest concerns for buyers were rising interest rates and mortgage payments at 31%, inflation at 20%, and a lack of suitable properties at 13%.
47% of investors and homeowners, and 42% of renters predicted house prices would fall in the next year.
ASB's latest housing confidence survey found that house price expectations were closing in on lows last seen during the Global Financial Crisis.
 The survey also revealed that more than three-quarters of the respondents expect interest rates to rise over the next 12 months.
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Read the report

NZ Women and Property

In 2023, home ownership between men and women in New Zealand was more equal than in the past, but females still had less ownership in aggregate.
There was a decline in both female-only and male-only inferred ownership compared with 2022, and joint male-female ownership increased to a relatively high 52.3% and accounted for the majority of both owner-occupied and investment property ownership observed.
Investment property accounted for much of the gap in ownership between genders.
The improvement in parity ownership rates of men and women in 2023 came from shifts in joint ownership.
Read the report