Real estate sure is a rollercoaster ride in NZ. Over the last 12-24 months, real estate prices in Auckland have soared, and don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
It’s the hot topic in the media at the moment too. Every week we read about average Kiwis who can’t get on the property ladder, foreign investors inflating the market, and the Reserve Bank’s latest failed measures to control the rising prices.
However, across the ditch, the property market is telling a different story to Auckland right now.
In November 2015, QV put the average house price in Auckland at a cool $918,153, a rise of over 7% in just 3 months! Many Aucklanders, especially first-home buyers and young families, have found themselves priced out of Auckland due to prices that are all out of proportion to our average wage here in New Zealand.
Moving out of Auckland
The unaffordable housing in Auckland has led some families to consider moving out of Auckland altogether. As prices go up even in far-flung suburbs like Orewa in the north, and Takanini in the south, a few Aucklanders have been on the move out of the big city. They reasoned that the only way to get on the property ladder was by moving to other, more rural parts of NZ.
While places like Tauranga have long been a popular choice for Auckland retirees to make the move to, even the smaller NZ cities are becoming unaffordable for many. Small-town NZ is still much cheaper, but of course the risk with moving out of a bigger city is you might not find as many opportunities in the job market. While it might work for some, taking a large pay cut and moving to the countryside is just not in the agenda for many New Zealanders looking to buy a home.
So what are the options for a first-home buyer struggling to get on the property ladder?
Plan B: moving to Australia
Moving to Australia could be the solution for many Auckland families. Keeping the big city lifestyle, a bigger job market than Auckland, and what about those house prices?
Across the ditch, the property market is telling a different story to Auckland right now.
The property market has also been occupying a space in the Aussie media headlines over the last few months, but the headlines are slightly different to the doom and gloom over in NZ. Although it’s true that house prices have been rising in Australia as well, this seems about to change – and it’s backed up by several expert sources.
Here’s the story over the last few months.
Back in October last year, the large investment bank Macquarie forecast that the housing bubble would burst within 6 months. The company stated, “Credit growth, auction clearance rates, house prices, settlement volumes and the dollar value of settlements are all showing signs of slowing,” and they forecast house prices starting to fall from March 2016, and staying low for the next year after that. Banks in Australia even worried about oversupply as the market went off the boil.
In December, the property data company CoreLogic RP Data commented that both the Sydney and Melbourne property markets were slowing down, and houses in those cities had decreased slightly in value over the November period.
Fast forward to present day, and the latest news on house prices is positive. Released yesterday, the National Australia Bank expects property prices to only grow by 1% in 2016 (down from earlier predictions of 2.3%). Property price growth in Australia is slowing down and predicted to remain that way for the rest of the year. Compare the price growth with Auckland’s 7% rise in only 3 months, and those figures are looking very attractive!
The right housing solution for you?
So if you’re a New Zealander despairing over the NZ and especially Auckland housing markets, why not assess your options and look into moving to Australia?
With salaries on par or higher than NZ, plus buoyant job markets in several large cities to choose from, now could be the right time to make the move to Australia.
To read more on the current Australian housing market situation, you can browse the following articles here, here and here.
To contact Ausmove for a quote on shipping to Australia, please use our quote form online.
