Two years of house prices defying all the forecasts

The median house price in Auckland has increased from $1m to $1.3m during the pandemic.

Mon, 20 Dec 2021

"Our baseline scenario assumes house prices will fall by around 9% over the remainder of 2020." That was Reserve Bank's assessment in its first monetary policy statement (MPS) once the impact of covid-19 on New Zealand had become clear.Issued in May 2020, a time of immense economic uncertainty, it saw prices falling as a result of "lower population and household income growth" and in spite of "lower interest rates, and the easing of loan-to-value ratio restrictions." The latter two being measures that the...

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