Once Bollard gets his way and the 5 year fixed mortgage rate goes below 4% the homes will sell quite easily at the higher prices so just a matter of time. So just hang in there sellers - it may take a while but it will happen.

Once house prices drop 30% from peak, all first home buyers will afford to buy. So, just hang in there buyers - might not happen in this life time, but it will happen.

Waymad

Happy to provide rope for book talkers to hang themselves.
We prefer to show rather than tell.
But our sympathies are quietly with you

cheers
Bernard

A 5 year fixed rate of 4 % ! Dude, I wish you were my Bank Manager.

Seems strange that "talking up" the market is trying to stoke the fire that pushes homes out of the financial range of most people. Have the real estate people not yet figured out that the number of people that can afford to buy is only going to fall, due to job losses etc.? And the number of houses for sale is only going to increase, with baby boomers retiring and "downsizing" or realizing their assets? No number of expats and new houses is going to fix that. Just wait till the end of the year, when the US currency devalues, food prices hike, and petrol starts becoming an issue.
I'm not a doom and gloomer (actually, I am....) but when will people realize that there ain't no going up after this going down.....

To bring some answers to the questions in regard to this report.

The asking price is the "median" price - that being the midpoint of 13,284 listings - this is the largest sample set of any report within real estate. By comparison the sample set of monthly sales stats from REINZ is around 5,000 currently.

Median is more relevant and statistically valid number to be used in relation to property given the diversity of housing stock on the market. As a reference point the average price shows the same trends and % movements just off a slightly higher base.

In response to waymad's comments - we have no agenda. We are a real estate website - we earn our income from the industry subscribing to the site matched with advertising income. In the last month 377,000 unique browsers came to the site and judged the site valuable - we are not trying to sell anything - we just feel that the statistics behind the database of the site can be a valuable guide for property owners, buyers and sellers.

This is a just a small bounce, things will keep dropping.
Land prices are simply too high and unsustainable.
Was pricing up a potential apartment development in Glen Innes today. Based on current land values, construction costs, professional fees, Council fees and developer's margin etc. we came to the conclusion that the potential 2 bedroom, 80 square metre apartments would have to go to market at about $430,000 to stack up.
This is way too high for a low income suburb like GI. Such units would only attrarct a rental of about $350 pw at best. Thats a return of only about 4%
To make this sort of development stack up we'd need either:
1. Land prices to drop 50% and rents increase say 10-15%; or
2. Land prices to drop 30% and rents increase 30-40%

Is this an "April Fools" posting or are New Zealanders really that big fools?

We have one of the worst housing bubbles in the world, and the size of the various nations housing bubbles are directly related to the severity of their economic crashes at the current time. OUR one has a long way to deflate yet. Any re-inflation along the way thanks to low interest rates or whatever, is just economic Darwinism.

Would a bank manager really have a clickeable name that goes to banksrbatards.com - LOL!

I reckon that real estate agents have discovered that buyers are offering so much lower than asking price that they have decided let's put prices up. For example seller wants $300,000 - in the past would have asked $319,000 and got close to that, now buyers will offer $250,000 so the answer is put asking price up to $395,000 and buyer will offer $320,000 and think he got a bargain when the seller would actually have been happy with $300,000.

That's what I reckon's happening - what do you think?

A lot of you seem to think that if a median moves up a bit, it must be skewed by higher priced property selling (or in this case being listed) - yet if it moves down a bit, it's because the market is collapsing and nothing to do with more lower priced property selling! Personally I prefer to view at least a years worth of data, as monthly movements don't always mean a lot.

In my opinion the REINZ stats have been a bit erratic lately due to low sales volumes, though I appreciate Alistair's is based on a substantial 13,000 listings. This is a great example of how the internet has made the world a lot more "instant". In years gone by, no-one would have had any idea what the median list price across companies was.
Thanks Alistair! :)