Potential buyers likely to have all the power in negotiations as the housing market heads into what could be a rough summer for residential real estate

The advantage is all with the buyers as the housing market readies for what could be a rough spring/summer season.

September is usually a shoulder month as the market transitions from the quieter winter period to the more buoyant summer season, but there are several indicators from the September figures this year suggesting it will be a sluggish market this summer.

Firstly, stock for sale is already at very high levels for the time of year.

Property website Realestate.co.nz reported having a total 34,001 residential properties available for sale at the end of September, up 11% compared to September 2025, up 15% compared to September 2024 and up 50% compared to September 2023.

Which of course is good news for buyers because it gives them plenty of choice. Not so good for vendors though, who face tough competition to secure a sale.

Perhaps even more telling is the ballooning overhang of unsold properties on the market.

The overhang is the number of properties that remain unsold after they've been on the market for more than a month.

That means they would generally have completed their normal promotional cycle with no sale eventuating and are in danger of languishing on the market as potential buyers start to lose interest.

Interest.co.nz estimates there was an overhang of about 24,500 properties at the end of September, up 15% compared to September 2025, up 18% compared to September 2024 and up a whopping 52% compared to September 2023.

And we think those estimates are on the conservative side.

Looked at another way, the estimated overhang was more than four times as large as the total number of residential sales reported by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand in September, up from being three times as large in September last year.

Another indicator of the current state of the market is the high number of dropouts.

Dropouts are properties which have either been withdrawn from sale completely, or remain technically for sale but are no longer being actively marketed, usually because their owners have unrealistic price expectations and refuse to meet the market.

Interest.co.nz estimates there were more than 2600 dropouts in September this year, up 13% compared to September last year.

Realistically, given the current market conditions, such properties are dead in the water.

All of this will weigh on prices heading into summer.

And with mortgage interest rates on the rise, buyers are likely to be driving even harder bargains as they negotiate a deal because the advantage lies squarely with them.