Despite Dire Post COVID Predictions New Zealand Home Prices and Sales Activity Grow in June

The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand is reporting that in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and the predictions of a decline in housing values and sales, in June housing prices increased nationally 9.2%, while sales volume grew by 7%. This marks the 105th straight month of price increases. Year-over-year home prices have gone from $585,000 in June 2019, to $639,000 in June 2020. If Auckland is excluded from the mix than prices actually increased by 11.3%. Bindi Norwell, the institutes chief executive said, “Earlier this year, there were a number of predictions that house prices would fall post-COVID. However, we are yet to see any evidence of that happening with every region in the country seeing an uplift from the same time last year, and 10 out of 16 regions seeing an uplift from May.”