The Star: March 03, 2022
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong> Thursday <strong>March</strong> 3 <strong>2022</strong><br />
6<br />
NEWS<br />
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />
‘Like winning Lotto’: Christchurch house<br />
Christchurch property<br />
sellers are riding<br />
a windfall wave.<br />
Catherine Masters<br />
reports<br />
NEARLY everyone who<br />
took their house to market<br />
in Christchurch in last three<br />
months of 2021 made a<br />
profit, according to CoreLogic’s<br />
latest Pain and Gain Report.<br />
New Zealand’s second biggest<br />
city saw a median resale gain of<br />
$328,250 for the quarter.<br />
That’s lower than other main<br />
centres but still huge, especially<br />
for one of the country’s most<br />
affordable cities where price<br />
growth had been flat for much<br />
of last decade, and the median<br />
resale profit was $160,000 at the<br />
end of 2020.<br />
<strong>The</strong> percentage of properties<br />
reselling for a loss was 0.6 per<br />
cent, down from 1.6 per cent<br />
in the third quarter of the year,<br />
with the median loss sitting at<br />
$3500, the lowest of all the major<br />
metros.<br />
Nationwide 99.3 per cent of<br />
property resales from October to<br />
December sold above their last<br />
purchase price.<br />
Agents spoken to by OneRoof<br />
described Christchurch’s housing<br />
market in 2021 as phenomenal,<br />
adding that they had never<br />
BUOYANT: Houses in Mt Pleasant. Christchurch’s median resale gain in the last three<br />
months of 2021 was $328,250, according CoreLogic’s latest Pain and Gain report.<br />
PHOTO: GEOFF SLOAN<br />
seen the market so hot.<br />
Happy vendors were scooping<br />
up over and above what they had<br />
expected, with one agent saying<br />
some sellers felt like they had<br />
won the lottery.<br />
Two years ago, about 90 per<br />
cent of Christchurch resales<br />
made a profit but in the last three<br />
months of 2021, 99.5 per cent of<br />
resales by owner occupiers and<br />
99.2 per cent by investors were<br />
over and above their last sale<br />
price.<br />
<strong>The</strong> growth in property values<br />
since the Covid pandemic struck<br />
in 2020 has boosted resale profits<br />
in both Christchurch and Auckland<br />
but while “Auckland’s affordability<br />
has deteriorated again<br />
to concerning levels, Christchurch<br />
still has some appeal”, says<br />
the report.<br />
“Accordingly, it wouldn’t<br />
be a surprise to see the gain<br />
figures stay higher for longer in<br />
Christchurch than in some of the<br />
other main centres.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> report points out that<br />
Christchurch, like all main<br />
centres, will be affected by<br />
tighter lending rules and higher<br />
mortgage rates.<br />
“But with unemployment low<br />
and mortgages already tested not<br />
only at current rates but also theoretical<br />
peak future rates, these<br />
should prove to be a challenge<br />
not a crisis,” says the report.<br />
That Christchurch resale gains<br />
were lower than New Zealand’s<br />
other major metros was understandable<br />
given that house<br />
prices in the city were lower to<br />
start with, said Kelvin Davidson,<br />
CoreLogic’s chief property<br />
economist.<br />
“Affordability is getting more<br />
stretched in Christchurch, too,<br />
but it’s still less stretched than<br />
elsewhere.”<br />
Davidson’s gut<br />
feeling is that in<br />
the year ahead,<br />
Christchurch<br />
will do a bit<br />
better than<br />
the rest of the<br />
country: “I think<br />
Christchurch’s<br />
growth in<br />
Kelvin<br />
Davidson<br />
value will slow but it still could<br />
outperform the national average<br />
because it’s still got affordability<br />
on its side.<br />
“It wouldn’t surprise me, too,<br />
if the gain figures on this report<br />
rose a bit for Christchurch and<br />
looked a bit stronger than elsewhere<br />
and then start to tail off a<br />
bit further out.”<br />
According to the latest OneRoof<br />
figures, the city’s average<br />
property value is $786,000, although<br />
CoreLogic’s own figures<br />
peg the city’s median property<br />
value at $750,000.<br />
Factors impacting value<br />
growth include the fact a lot of<br />
land was opened up for developments<br />
in greater Christchurch,<br />
including Selwyn and Waimakiriri,<br />
but that land has now<br />
dried up and land prices have<br />
gone up by a lot.<br />
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