June 2024 Market Update

The REINZ has released the numbers for June 2024. As usual, I have created graphs to illustrate any trends more clearly.

There were 65 sales across the board in Rotorua for June, which is disappointing. Of these, only 52 were residential sales, with the remainder being lifestyle properties and sections.

We are clearly still in what is considered a buyer's market. The key factor influencing this is interest rates, any downward movement in rates is unlikely before the end of the year or the beginning of 2025.

However, competitively priced, well-presented homes are still selling quickly.

The graph below illustrates the distribution of sales across different price bands, pretty standard stuff really with no big surprises unlike Mays results which you may recall had 14 sales surpassing the million-dollar mark, including 5 exceeding 1.7 million, and one sale of 10 million. The busiest bands for June is perhaps under the $750,000 mark but again that is fairly normal.

The Median Sale Price below shows the typical fluctuations we expect each month. There was a small increase this month from May's $615,000. However, there has been an overall decrease from the beginning of the year. As mentioned in previous updates, this statistic can be somewhat misleading. For instance, if a few higher-priced homes sell in a particular month, the median sale price will increase. Conversely, if more lower-priced homes sell, the median sale price will decrease. This doesn’t necessarily reflect changes in the value of individual houses. A longer-term view is more useful: the average monthly median sale price over the last two years is just under $665,000.

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 all of us and has consistently been featured in our Monthly Market Update. 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because the data does not account for properties that lingered on the market for extended periods and were eventually withdrawn.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.