The housing market is having a buyer's summer with new listings and total stock for sale both at their highest levels for the time of year in more than a decade.
Property website Realestate.co.nz received 12,252 new listings in February, up 7.8% from February last year, making it the most new listings the website has received in February since 2013.
That pushed already high total stock levels up to an 11-year high, with the website having a total of 36,357 homes available for sale at the end of February.
The biggest increases in new listings last month tended to be in the smaller provincial centres, with new listings in the Central North Island (which includes Taupo) up 25.0% year-on-year, followed by Taranaki 22.3%, Marlborough 21.1% and Manawatu/Whanganui 20.9%.
However, buyers in most main centres will also have plenty of choice, with new listings in the Bay of Plenty up 16.7% compared to February last year, followed by Auckland 10.8%, Canterbury 7.9% and Otago 6.0%. See the table below for the full regional figures.
Asking prices were basically flat, with the national average asking price of properties available for sale on Realestate.co.nz moving up just 0.1% in February to $849,061.
10 Comments
From the report:
"When new listings rise faster than total stock, it tells us homes are being sold through rather than sitting on the market."
Asking prices are neither here nor there however they're up YOY and MOM.
Momentum and confidence building.
🥂
When new listings rise faster than total stock, it tells us homes are being sold through rather than sitting on the market
That's moot if they don't specify the number of listings withdrawn from the market without being sold
I'm glad Greg didn't parrot their talking points, which are just spin without substance when using incomplete data
Yes however the clear tendency here is to spin numbers and news to the downside. Balance is beneficial 👏🥂
Our most complete report on the housing Market is the Housing Market Activity Report which comes out in the second half of each month. It is based on data from both Realestate.co.nz and the REINZ and includes trends in properties withdrawn from sale and the monthly overhang of properties for sale. Here's a link to the January report: https://www.interest.co.nz/property/137239/housing-sales-dropouts-and-m…
Let's not forget the developers who list only 1 or 2 of 8 for sale.
"total stock for sale both at their highest levels for the time of year in more than a decade." - that isn't that bad is it? I don't remember people thinking there was too much stock a decade ago.
Be Quick....
Sure it doesn’t look terrible… if we just completely ignore the broader context
I personally think this is a trend that is likely to continue the next decade or two (high listings/weak demand). Remember approx 50% of the boomer generation are going to be dead in the next 10 years and they are the largest property owning demographic. Each day more die, are diagnosed with cancer or other significant health issues, they are downsizing their properties as the 3-4 bedroom family home is not longer suitable for their needs.
Doing a quick google, there are approx 1,000,000 boomers in NZ and half of that will be dead in the next 10 years or so. Think about the significant implications of this at the macro level of our demographics/economy. We've lived in a boomer fixated/centered/influenced environment for decades now and this is coming to a very quick end (ie policies that were mostly beneficial for that generation because they were the largest voting demographic). What is the future going to look like as a result?
If my rough calculations are correct, there could be around 500,000 boomer deaths in the next 10 years (average age of death 80+ e.g. born 1950 so 80+ average age of death is coming around very soon, especially for men, perhaps not so much women who are project to live a bit longer...) so around 50,000 a year (on average). (Happy to be corrected if these figures are materially incorrect/inaccurate).
Are we going to have net immigration high enough to offset these deaths? If not, what fundamental changes are we going to see in our economy (and housing market)?
Seems to me like the elephant in the room that everyone is quietly ignoring - and yet it is going to be one of (if not) the biggest influences on our economy - starting now and last the next 2 decades - a lot of people are going to die here relative to our overall population. Ie boomers currently 20% of the population and they are nearing their expiry date.
ps. last year it appears we have approx 58,000 births so perhaps we will be okay if external immigration remains low?
I know a downsizer who listed rural LSB at 2.8mil eventually sold for 1.85 mil.
I think i'm turning Japanese, I really think so.........
And often the kids want mum/dads old place sold as they need the money to reduce their own debt.
Same for the shares that many of these boomers have as well!
There is a belief that credit availability will fall (or interest rates rise) on the back of this, many of the boomers were forced to invest for retirement, thus this credit will be missing over the next few decades.
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