New Zealand housing turnover bounces in August, but overall trends remain weak

Housing turnover in New Zealand managed to bounce in August in seasonally adjusted terms. Housing sales volume rose 4.7 percent sequentially after falling consecutively in the prior two months. However, on a year-on-year basis, the turnover is still down 20 percent. The overall activity trends continue to remain weak. Meanwhile, the median number of days to sell reached a three-year high. It rose 1.4 days in August to 38.2 days, the highest since September 2014.

National house prices remained flat. The REINZ House Price Index rose 0.2 percent sequentially in August, after dropping in the prior three months. National prices are effectively flat on a year-on-year basis, with annual growth at just 0.4 percent year-on-year.

Region wise, cooler conditions are reasonably broad based. Every single region is now experiencing lower levels of sales volumes than this time last year. The length of time to sell is increasing in most of the regions as well. But it is little more mixed from a price growth perspective. Auckland prices managed to print 0.3 percent sequential gain in August, but fell 3.1 percent year-on-year, the weakest annual change since 2009. Throughout the remainder of the nation, prices continue to be up 6.9 percent year-on-year.

At 22:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of New Zealand Dollar was neutral at 36.8943, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was bullish at 88.5456. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

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