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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on national house prices declining in 2024 · The SME Stream

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  Speaker 1: Now it apparently takes an average of fifty days nowadays
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  Speaker 1: to seller house in New Zealand, and prices are still
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  Speaker 1: largely flat. Inflementary Infametrics principal economist Brad Olson's with me.
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  Speaker 2: Now, hey, Brad, good evening.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So what's the market actually doing? Is it volatile
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  Speaker 1: or has it settled into a kind of a flat space.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's broadly pretty flat at the moment,
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  Speaker 2: I think. I mean, there's was a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: evidence in the data that we got today from the
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  Speaker 2: Real Estate Institute suggesting that maybe there've been a little
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  Speaker 2: bit of a pop higher in prices in the month
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  Speaker 2: of September, but to be fair, that would be the
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  Speaker 2: first time we'd seen a monthly increase since April, so
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  Speaker 2: nearly half a year. Realistically, that means you've had six
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  Speaker 2: months of down and then one month of up, so
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  Speaker 2: really you're not going anywhere fast on the price front.
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  Speaker 2: I think the thing that gets me hither when we
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  Speaker 2: look through the housing market at the moment, and this
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  Speaker 2: is going to be the challenge for sellers particularly Not
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  Speaker 2: only is it taking fifty days on a seasonally adjusted
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  Speaker 2: basis to seller house, but there's about half a year's
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  Speaker 2: worth of house sales currently sitting on the market unsolved,
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  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of choice out there. Good if
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  Speaker 2: you're one of those limited number of buyers, but not
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  Speaker 2: so good if you're trying to sell a house, because
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  Speaker 2: you're competing with everyone else to sell it.
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  Speaker 1: So I mean that obviously drives prices down, right, So
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  Speaker 1: should we expect prices to continue to fall?
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  Speaker 2: What we are seeing at the moment is that the
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  Speaker 2: number of houses left on the market is high, but
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  Speaker 2: ever so slightly starting to either decrease or sort of
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  Speaker 2: track sideways. So I think we're likely to see house
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  Speaker 2: prices be fairly subdued. And I say that because you
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  Speaker 2: could see a few months of ups and a few
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  Speaker 2: months of downs at different points. But realistically, I don't
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  Speaker 2: think that you're going to see a whole art lot.
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  Speaker 2: And that's sort of the big one. Because, yes, interest
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  Speaker 2: rates are coming down, which of course should stimulate a
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  Speaker 2: bit more buyer activity, But realistically there's still a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people out there who are trying to sell a house,
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  Speaker 2: so for the moment, still more in the buyer's hands
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  Speaker 2: than in the sellars.
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  Speaker 1: Are you seeing that one month of price increases as
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a shift.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a little bit too early to read into it.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, is it coincidences at start of something new.
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  Speaker 2: One month's worth of data probably doesn't tell us. It
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  Speaker 2: could be a little bit of it coming through. You've
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  Speaker 2: definitely heard a lot of people who are talking with
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  Speaker 2: a lot more optimism in the housing market. But I
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  Speaker 2: think we'll want to wait and see. Regardless, I don't
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  Speaker 2: think we're about to see, you know, the housing market
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  Speaker 2: really perk up. It's likely to just be sort of
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  Speaker 2: hovering for a little while.
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  Speaker 1: Brad, what are you picking for the inflation number tomorrow?
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  Speaker 2: I think we're at two point two two point three,
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  Speaker 2: so sort of in that ballpark regardless. I mean, the
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  Speaker 2: numbers are likely to look a lot better in a sense,
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  Speaker 2: which is certainly encouraging. It's one of those things though
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  Speaker 2: part of that has been driven by the lacks of
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  Speaker 2: petrol and similar so jury's out as to where we're
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  Speaker 2: going from here. But realistically, I think we're in a
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  Speaker 2: much better spot and that's encouraging news for the economy.
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  Speaker 2: More interest rate reductions on the way, so better things
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  Speaker 2: around the corner.
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  Speaker 1: Good stuff. Yeah, you can't be more happy about it, Brad,
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Brad Olsen, principal economist and informetrics