August 2024 Market Update

The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) has released the August 2024 figures. To better understand the state of the market and where it might be heading, I created some simple graphs. Personally, I find it much easier to scan a graph to see not just how the numbers have changed since last month but also to identify any longer-term trends. It’s far more helpful for me than trying to make sense of numbers scribbled on a piece of paper. Hopefully, these visuals will be useful to you too.

Clearly a small drop in the monthly sales for August which achieved 81 Sales, 9 less than the previous month of 90 sales, still overall the sales numbers so far this year are stronger than 2023 which in turn where stronger than 2022 numbers, to further qualify that statement. August 2022 saw 72 sales, August 23, saw 73 sales and August this year achieved 81 sales.

It has been and is a painfully slow uptick there is no doubt, but I am hopeful it will continue and even speed up moving forward, as I have mentioned perhaps too many times, I do believe anything approaching a balanced market would have a 100 plus sales per month.

Th graph below breaks down which price range the 81sales in Rotorua came from in August

The median sale price does normally bounce around a little, of all the stats this one does need to be viewed as a trend rather than taking too much from an isolated individual month, the trend does still illustrate we still have some ground to make up from 2022. lowering interest rates will be the key to that.

The median or average time to sell in Rotorua, as illustrated below, has shown considerable variability over the past few years. This statistic is of great interest to many of us. However, I believe it paints a clearer picture in a hotter market.

As I've mentioned in previous updates, the actual median in our current market is likely higher than the statistics suggest. This discrepancy arises because the data does not account for properties that lingered on the market for extended periods and were eventually withdrawn. Instead, it only records successful sales. In a hot market, nearly every property sells, making those figures more reliable indicators.