The Covid-19 outbreak in Wellington is unlikely to slow the city’s housing market, with real estate agents saying it’s business as usual under alert level two.
Tommy’s Real Estate sales director and principal Nicki Cruickshank told OneRoof that buyers and sellers appeared to taking the new restrictions in their stride.
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“There’s nowhere near the same reaction as last time. It does feel a bit more like business as usual. Some older clients are not prepared to look at properties, but younger ones are not bothered,” she said.
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“Our only change is that if tenants are not agreeable with strangers in their house, we’re not doing showings at tenanted properties.”
Cruickshank said that while the market is not the same as three months ago – the average number of offers on an existing property is sitting around four, compared to a peak of eight in March – buyers are buying off the plans “at a great rate of knots”.
According to the latest OneRoof house price figures, the median property value in the Greater Wellington area grew 33% to $888,000 in the year since the New Zealand came out of lockdown, while the median value in the capital rose 27% - $215,000 – to $1.025m. The median in Mount Victoria, near the centre of town, is up $525,000 to $1.51m and prices in many central suburbs are up by more than 40%.
Paul Dickason, who is the owner and manager of Professionals in Wellington, said that none of his clients had been fretting. “For open homes, if we have 30 people in 30 minutes, we’ll just spread it out for another 15 minutes. Nobody has cancelled open homes,” he said.
Dickason said that while the government town was somewhat insulated against booms and busts, the property market had been massively stimulated since Covid.
“Two years ago, across the whole of Wellington city, there were 1600 listings. Now there are 400 – and the bottom 100 will be overpriced stock that never sells, so in reality there are just 300 properties for sale,” he said.
“People buying in that under $2m price bracket are just frustrated buyers. You need a minimum of $1m to find a house and a house that sold for $1m ten years ago, you’d be looking at $2m now."
Wellington streets are quieter than normal, but agents say open homes are continuing as normal. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Harcourts sales director Antonia Brown said that people were more prepared this round. “We’ve all just glided into screening, distancing. I’ve only had one call from an anxious vendor who is shortly coming to market, to find out what we would do,” she said.
“We’ve got auctions today, so we’ll only allow people who are actually bidding to come in, and clear the room after each auction. Everybody understands and is totally good with that.”
Brown said that open home protocols were in place, and while she had not seen many people wearing masks in the city yesterday, agents were offering masks and gloves at open homes and manage crowds and social distancing.
“People really appreciate us being rigorous.”
Real Estate Institute of New Zealand acting chief executive Wendy Alexander said that people should remind themselves of the guidelines that were in play the last time the country and the housing market were under Covid-19 restrictions.
For alert level two that includes using contact tracing, hygiene etiquette and physical distancing (two metres between bubbles) at open homes, and the same for auctions (with a limit of 100 people attending at one time).
Pre-settlement inspections, settlements and house moving can occur as normal, as can agent visits to properties for appraisals and listings, photography and home staging.
But in level two, visits to rental properties need the permission of tenants, and that permission cannot be unreasonably withheld, per the Residential Tenancies Act.
