The housing market has made a disappointing start to spring with the usual rush of new listings failing to arrive, according to property website Realestate.co.nz.
The website signed up 10,519 new residential listings in September, barely changed from the 10,585 it signed up in August and down 12.2% from the 11,983 new listings it attracted in August last year.
"The traditional lift in housing market activity during September failed to eventuate, highlighting the unpredictable nature of the property market in 2016," Realestate.co.nz spokesperson Vanessa Taylor said.
The trend was particularly pronounced in Auckland, with just 3564 Auckland residential properties newly listed on the website in September, down 5.3% compared to August and down 17.9% compared to September last year.
New listings in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Wellington followed the same pattern as Auckland, with the number of new listings in September well down on both August and September last year.
However Canterbury went against the trend, with 1390 new listings in September compared to 1268 in August, but that was still down on the 1459 Canterbury properties that were newly listed on the website in September last year.
But although there's been a decline in the number of new listings coming to market, sellers do not appear be dropping their asking prices.
The average asking price of homes newly listed for sale on the website in September hit an all time high of $599,431 in September, compared to $588,269 in August and $558,243 in September last year.
In Auckland the average asking price of homes newly listed in September also hit an all time high of $931,816 in September, compared to $894,364 in August and $841,240 in September last year.
4 Comments
It could be a lot of baby boomers have taken advantage of the price rises over the last couple of years and downsized or moved out of town to pay for their retirement so the amount of new stock to come on the market this year may be more limited. Anyway that's half a theory. Let's see what happens over the next 3 months.
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