Could Hamilton’s median house price top $400,000 in 2015?

Hamilton, New Zealand – Lodge Real Estate’s managing director, Jeremy O’Rourke, said today that January house sales were extremely strong and a great indicator of a buoyant year ahead for Hamilton’s residential market.

185 homes were sold on the Hamilton market in January, compared to 149 one year ago in January 2014.

“January is traditionally a slow month for house sales in the Hamilton market. However, January 2015 was extremely busy. In fact, if you look at the number of homes sold on the market in the month of January over the past fifteen years, it was the fourth strongest January period.

“Historically, if January starts out with strong sales volumes, the entire year is normally buoyant. We saw the same trend occur two years ago in 2013,” said Mr O’Rourke.

Hamilton’s median house price fell from $380,000 in December 2014 to $355,000 in January. The fall could be attributed to the number of investors in the market during the period. Mr O’Rourke said market indicators are pointing to the possibility that Hamilton’s median could hit $400,000 this year.

“We can never be certain where the median will go, but the market is indicating that we certainly could see Hamilton’s median house price top the $400,000 mark later this year. If that happens, it would be an historical milestone – we’ve never seen it hit that level before,” he said.

He said the lack of quality housing stock is a key issue. “At the end of November 2014 there were 971 homes listed for sale in Hamilton on realestate.co.nz. However, at the end of January there were only 813 on realestate.co.nz. With buyer demand up and housing stocks down, prices can only go one way – up,” said Mr O’Rourke.

Despite being a strong seller’s market, fewer people are taking full advantage of buyer competition and going to auction with only around 25% of properties listed as auctions during the month. This is around 30% fewer listings going to auction than was happening toward the end of 2014.

Lodge Real Estate is Hamilton city’s largest real estate agency by volume with over 34% of residential market share. For the latest REINZ market data, visit www.reinz.co.nz .

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