Property listings drop in January for first time in 4 years; asking prices drop too

The number of new properties listed for sale on Realestate.co.nz in January fell from December for the first time in four years and asking prices on the site also fell as the market remained sluggish and favoured buyers, Realestate.co.nz reported. Here is the rest of the release on the monthly report from real estate.co.nz below and the full report is available at unconditional.co.nz.

Alistair Helm, CEO of Realestate.co.nz, says “January saw just 10,272 new listings coming onto the market, down from 10,349 in December. Even though the start of the new year traditionally shows a strong lift in listings to take advantage of increased summer activity, for the first time in four years the January figure has been lower than December.” In addition, the national asking price in January fell to $405,040, a 1.8% drop from December’s figure of $412,319, and a further slide of 3.5% from November’s $419,586. The January figure remains 5.6% below the market peak of October 2007 when the asking price reached $429,033. However, while some vendors may be lowering their price expectations to expedite the sales process, buyers appear to be biding their time in the expectation that prices will fall further in an increasingly crowded market. Alistair Helm continues, “The level of sales remains static, showing no significant improvement. As a result, the inventory level of unsold houses has shot up significantly, as measured by the number of weeks of sales necessary to clear properties on the market. In December, the inventory level was 34.3 weeks, but this jumped to 40.1 weeks in January, the highest since April last year.” “All three key indices from the January statistics, i.e. asking price, new listings and inventory level, show an absence of expected seasonal swings. This lack of typical seasonality underscores the state of dormancy within New Zealand property, and further highlights the fact that it continues to be a buyers’ market,” he says.