The housing market is heading into winter with a huge overhang of unsold properties, even though the number of properties being withdrawn from sale is also rising.
Interest.co.nz estimates there was an overhang of just over 28,000 unsold residential properties on the market at the end of April.
The overhang is the number of properties remaining unsold after they have been on the market for at least a month.
April's overhang was up 2.9% compared to April last year, and up 16.6% compared to April 2024.
The overhang is now the biggest it has been in the month of April since 2014.
By way of comparison, at the peak of the last housing boom in 2021, the overhang got down below 5000, so it has increased more than fivefold since then.
The increase in the size of the overhang is occurring even though more vendors are taking their properties off the market after they fail to to sell.
Interest.co.nz estimates there were almost 3200 dropouts from the market in April, up 4.7% compared to April last year.
Dropouts are the properties that are completely taken off the market in a month, plus those that may technically still be for sale, but are no longer being actively marketed, usually because the agents involved have given up on them as a lost cause because of the vendors' unrealistic price expectations.
Interest.co.nz's believes its estimates of both the monthly overhang and the dropouts are conservative, so the actual numbers may well be slightly higher.
The timing of the latest figures is a particular concern, because it comes on top of numbers that were already extremely high, and both tend to increase further over the winter months when sales numbers traditionally decline.
The bright spot in all of this is that it's good news for potential buyers.
They will literally be spoiled for choice, with the market pendulum swinging even further in their favour.
However, vendors might be facing a very chilly winter this year.
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