A surge of new residential property listings could result in a buyer's market developing next year, property data company CoreLogic says in its latest Market Pulse report.
"The signs that the total stock of listings on the market has embarked on a firm upward trend are becoming much clearer," the report says.
And in some areas such as Dunedin and Wellington, the supply of properties for sale is loosening quickly.
"More choice for purchasers can only mean reduced price pressures in due course, and a switch to a buyer's market later in 2022 is firmly on the cards, albeit they'll have to work harder to get the finance in the first place," it says.
"For some time now, the tight supply of listings on the market, set up against strong demand fuelled by low mortgage rates and abundant credit availability, has been a factor pretty much right across the country, pushing up property values sharply.
"The lack of choice for buyers has created FOMO effect and it's certainly put the power into the hands of property sellers.
"The mechanics for this have been a reduced flow of new listings, mostly due to the various lockdowns but continued high levels of achieved sales at the other end of the pipeline, which have combined to slowly dwindle away the available stock on the market.
"However over the past few months, a turning point for for the total stock of listings on the market has become much clearer, as new flows have recovered and achieved sales have dipped.
"Since the recent trough, the total stock of listings has risen by almost 40% and is now back up to the highest level since March."
The report says the trend is particularly evident in Wellington and Dunedin and to a lesser extent in Hamilton, where listings are now above the levels at this time in 2019 and 2020.
"The turning point does now look to have been reached and it wouldn't be a surprise to see listings continue to increase into 2022, as new sellers come forward and sales activity tails off further," it says.
"Overall, in 2022 we may well see a buyer's market for the first time in a few years.
"To be fair, it's important to note that a reduction in vendors' power may not necessarily equate to outright falls in house prices.
"But even so, although buyers will have to work pretty hard to get the finance in the first place, they have reasons to be optimistic about getting a bargain next year."
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83 Comments
A timely reminder that "supply" in a financial sense is not a measure of the number of houses there are; it's a measure of the number of houses there are for sale.
Indeed.
Luckily, almost all New Zealanders went to sleep in secure accommodation last night.
But perhaps 99 of them used the accommodation of an owner who might have 100 properties to their name.
Encourage that owner to release the 99 back to market that isn't their own residence (that's what Government regulations and tax policy are for) and all 100 would have their very own home.
(NB: It's not the current owners 'problem'. They have only done what they were incentivised to do by current property rules. It's those which have to change)
Recvd a cold call from an REA last night at dinner time! Thats bad enough, they did not know the ppty is a multi dwelling property, they just looked up owner details of one of the units. Its impossible to sell just one unit out of the block but the newbie agent didn't know how that works. From the sounds of it bw neither do you. Due to govt imposed restrictions an extra ten families are renting from us. So after going to work for the week they hand us their pay cheque... well not that bad, we are very nice landlords so they have a few coins left to rub together (tongue in cheek lol)
Yes and I think that this is where the public have been confused. We have had record low numbers of listings over the last year or two but a lot of buyers. At some point listings would increase.
And the ratio of buyers:sellers
Fun fact.
The median house price in Sheffield (stock image) is £150,000 or $292,000 NZD.
And wages are higher and food is cheaper. Lets all move to the UK. If only it wasn't so over crowded and cold.
Hey, come on now. My home town is close to Sheffield and it may be colder in Winter, but it's certainly better weather than Wellington. At least your home is dry and easy to heat. And there's not just a couple sheets of plywood separating you and a southerly.
I recommend Spain, Italy etc. Cheaper than the UK or New Zealand while still being developed countries so relatively easy to find a job. For retirement Greece and Croatia are also worth investigating.
Wages may be higher but so are taxes (40% top rate income tax plus 12% National insurance). And if wages are so good, how come food bank use is so rife there?
You also pay no tax on the first $25k. It's also 20% tax up to $100k.
In NZ 30% tax kicks in at $48k.
Oh yep, I'd forgotten about the 0% rate. Thanks. That does even things up quite a bit for lower earners.
Still doesn't explain the rampant food bank use there though, even amongst people who are working.
Perosnally, I find quality of life is better here, despite some things being a bit more expensive, but I am a bit weird :)
The things that are more expensive are punishingly so. Then there's the congestion, the difficulty in getting something like a backyard, the constant talking-down-to by those directly responsible for fixing our current malaise and flubbing it, etc.
It's not a pleasant place to live anymore.
Can't tell if you're talking about Sheffield or Auckland.
Steel / Steal
Ha, nice.
That's only a deposit in good old NZ.
Our houses are so superior
yeah we live in a bubble here, houses are a lot cheaper in most other countries. You will know when the market has turned, the auctions and PBNs will be replaced with a price. It hasnt happened yet.
It has in Wellington, used to be all tenders, then all by deadline, now mostly offers over x but I notice a few of those values for x have been reduced lately.
It has started to happen on the part of North Shore I’m looking in - I’m noticing more houses being passed in at auction and more appearing with a price. Also lots and lots of new builds coming onto the market.
My wife works in a re office. Says they are going mental with huge amounts of people now looking to sell. Also hearing of landlords downsizing portfolios and a couple recently selling as they can no longer service higher rates.
She's adamant a crash is coming.
Interesting feedback. Reality is gains bragged about at bbqs only exist on paper until a sale puts the money in your bank. As the slide begins specuvestors will get increasingly panicked as their tax free gains eroded further every day.
After all, who can get the funding to bail them out at today's bubble pricing?
Kaaarrrkkkk.
To be fair, rates haven't really gone up that much, the next 50-100 bp rate hike might push more households into financial stress.
Indeed. Rates have be so low any change has a massive difference in the amount of interest you pay. The highly leveraged who were chasing tax offset and forgotten how to spell yield are stuffed.
Comparing the UK property market to the NZ property market is like comparing something sophisticated and sustainable…. To well, the New Zealand clown show. Non catastrophe versus catastrophe. We could learn something to be fair if we had the courage to stand up and admit we are out of our depth and out of control.
I think reflexivity probably explains best what's going on in New Zealand.
Low retail mortgage rates have fed high house prices and, possibly less frequently considered, high house prices have actually fed low retail mortgage rates and relaxing lending standards. As the underlying value of real estate rises borrowers become viewed as more credit worthy and can borrow more based on their holding being used as collateral for new loans.
The cycle will eventually reverse but typically this is far shorter and sharper because it triggers the forced liquidation of leveraged positions which depresses realestate values. So bubbles are very asymmetric in nature. Foremost the rational thing to do when a market is inflating is actually to buy because identifying if or when a bubble will end is near impossible. Just beware that if the market plateaus there will be a problem because cycle relies on revaluation of assets. That's self reinforcement within a cycle.
Most people are aware there is a bubble in New Zealand real estate and many can even identify Reserve Bank policy as having driven that. No one can forecast if or when it will end, a history of forecasts and predictions will show you that economists have no more insight than a bloke on the street.
In the UK a sale can fall over so easily. A family member has sold a house over there, but they can still pull out if they don't find anything they like. That couldn't really happen in the NZ market with the current market and Auction being the main sales method in places like Auckland.. Prices over there also look far better value for what you get. People in the UK also have dwellings that are attached/ semi detach/ terraced etc, and you will find many peoples requirements these days is for the house to be detached. NZ is moving to the opposite. It is so ironic because in NZ almost all houses used to be detached, and in the UK most houses were terraced or semi attached, Roles are reversing. Also so much cheaper to build over there. London prices are still high but much of the rest of the UK is cheap and investors and banks from overseas are piling in.
Another stock image fun fact :
the region phone code 0114 is seen on the bass drum of the arctic monkeys.
B L,
The average price across the UK is almost exactly half what it is here. Even for London, the average price is slightly lower. Does this make sense? Of course not.
Pure luck has been my friend. When I moved here in 2003, I was able to buy my house in Mount Maunganui and a 2 bed flat( in Glasgow) with the proceeds of my home outside Glasgow. Now, that house would barely buy me a starter home here.
What is the average price of land? I guess in London, most housing are apartments and small units with almost no land. I am not saying NZ Prices are reasonable or anything, just that to be able to compare to other places, a lot of other things most be considered. I looked at average price of per square meter of land in Sydney and Auckland, and Auckland prices are more expensive but not by much. This does not make sense really.
The value of land itself seems to have been bloated in major urban areas. This article https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/2018-03/estimating-the-phy… contributes almost all of the price to "administrative scarcity" of land!
If you want to understand the value of land read anything by Alan Evans, and which is, as you say is summarised as the 'administrative scarcity' of land, ie it is more of an artificial scarcity created by Govt. policy, than an actual scarcity.
And as far as comparisons go, you don't need to consider much else, as it is ubiquitous as any law of the universe, ie the same principles apply anywhere in the world.
I think it is fair to say we are passed the top of the market (In Auckland). Once the decline kicks in, it could gain momentum fairly rapidly. The problem with a falling market is knowing when to buy back in as there is always the option of waiting longer and paying even less.
Prices are not actually dropping in most areas.
Rather the rate of price increase each month is falling. So the ‘top’ has not quite been reached yet.
Waiting is a fools game since the doomsayers were advocating that from 2008 til now - to the detriment of all who followed that advice.
Agree that waiting is a fool game but the question is, How many FHB specially in Auckland who were struggling to buy $800000 house before pandemic can afford 1.2Million - Has their income moved up or have they got a jackpot to boost their deposit.
So mortagebelt, I think waiting now is not by choice but by circumstance - affordability and hope.
Preaching to the wrong crowd. How many of the current FHBs were in a position to buy back in 2008? Most were probably still in school/university. If you only started looking to buy in the last few years and have so far only seen the goal posts move further and further away then now is definitely a time to wait and see if those posts start to move back in to range.
Doesn't matter people just can't afford new house, friends went looking and even if they sold up, houses for the next step have increased so much, its out of their price range.
We sold a house in UK just recently, its to expensive for us to buy here, so we investing in other type of assets for our business, this will give us income for rest of our lives, we will either rent forever living off our income, and holiday in Spain in winter from our income. Least we won't have a massive mortgage. We may look to buy an apartment in Spain instead. Good 3 bedroom ones by the beach and town, and rent in NZ. We will see, what options we have. But not buying in NZ just yet.
Yup. I guess the problem is now is that the RBNZ doesn't really have any real capacity to stimulate the market. Especially if CPI hovers above 3%.
_
If CPI hovers above 3% RB won’t need to stimulate. By their PTA mandate and design they’ll maintain policy or continue to pull back if the 3% hangs around and is not moving given the 2% midterm aim.
Despite overcooking it the one thing they can’t ignore and not respond to is high inflation above their goal that persists.
Good article. I guess the lack of immigration over the last 2 years has put a real damper on demand also.
Yeah immigration with those multi millionaire Fluid Executive Technicians or the Directors of Table Service Management, not to mentioned those newly minted highly trained graduates that come from those ivy league schools scattered around NZ with millions to buy property.
Gregg, It is funny whenever data (Fact/Reality) suggests that housing ponzi is as strong, if not more (Like recent data that house price in Auckland are moving $13500 per week, which is a fact), agencies and experts start throwing up assumption or expectation or feeling that house price ponzi may stop.
Why is this circus going on since early this year.
Just curious observer.
I think it was Keynes who said “the market can remain irrational for longer than you can remain solvent”. He was talking to someone complaining about the irrationality of Stockmarket prices after the 1929 crash. But what he says also applies to house price bubbles - both on the way up and down.
I take your general point. But I think the current inconsistency relates to this latest data being very lagged (based on *settlements* in the *last three months*). These can be sales from quite a while ago. Other observers are commenting on the wind change in auction rooms (e.g. late November / early December). I'll wait for the Reinz HPI (not median) which is out soon, as the true reliable data (fact). Doubt it will show any falls yet, but December might for some regions (e.g. Wellington city).
Yeah.. but NZ isn't looking like the best place to live..
..the NZ Dollar is pretty shaky too, so diversifying out of NZ Dollar denominated assets is key.. NOT borrowing to buy a million-dollar-house [average price].
Kiwi homebuyers are also competing with a fantasist government whom bid against them for both land and existing housing stock.
It's an untenable situation and as I've said for years; the social problems and crime will continue to escalate. There is a lack of moral competency in NZ - saying, "be kind" is not moral competency, actually it's quite passive-aggressive, even dangerous advice.
The social problems are going to increasingly come from the middle as well.
Hard to tell your kids to put their head downs, work hard and they'll get ahead when the entire system is set up to stop that from happening and people cream it by making it harder for others to get by.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
~ Alexander Fraser Tytler ~
NZ is somewhere between dependence and bondage.
This is total nonsense, after doubling the price you are expecting buyers' market in the next couple of months.
A buyers market is when the price is negotiable at a realistic level, yes it will be negotiated in the next couple of months but it is also true the prices keep creeping up every week.
Re agents still asking for unimaginable prices for the shoeboxes and there is no chance of reset.
They always come up with theory whenever data is released that suggest that housing ponzi is stronger than before. It is all a part of strategy by RE lobbyist to not create panic in rbnz and government to act.
Media here is too small and not as strong as should be as they need each other - I scratch your back and you scratch mine. Sometime they do raise concern but is just a token to not become absolute.
Media here do not raise an issue till it reaches a conclusion. Has anyone grilled Mr Orr or for that matter government. Opposition can but why will they - is Jacinda not finishing the unfinished task left left by John Key and Bill English and doing it in style.
Would you like to buy my Tulip bulbs?
No! Put them where the sun doesnt shine
But they were worth so much in the past .... so they must be worth more now.
Yes I would, keep the party going
Sentiment has quickly changed. Watching auctions today and there's very little already meeting vendors expectations with alot of properties being passed in.
You can see how fast this momentum could build.
Stable door has been shut and horse has been bolted.
Now all they can do is politics and who better than Jacinda Arden who has graduated from being a student to a principal, leaving likes of John Key far behind. She can take it as a compliment or as a swear word.
Anecdotal but I am suddenly getting random phone calls from agents asking me where I am in my property journey. This is strange as I havn't really been to open homes in a few years. They must be trawling though there old databases.
Yeah, I sniffed around a few years ago and must have ended up on some lists, and started getting RE emails again a couple of weeks ago.
The Ponzi will get most of it's fresh hopeful meat from immigration next year. I am permanently out and eating popcorn - fun to watch.
I still allow myself hope of seeing a negative OCR though - please let it get that desperate!
Hi Rob Reid,
How could you ever aspire to owning your own home if you waste your money 💰 on popcorn? 🍿
TTP
I know there are *some* decent ones out there but the majority vultures are circling now on the limited food available to try and maintain the ridiculous lifestyle and earnings they’ve billed to hard working kiwis in the last year and a half. RE firm who sold me my apartment in welly has resold about 15 of the units that were sold a year ago… madness.
Yep, watching it online today.... not a good sign for things going forward.
Especially with inflation at 4.9%
Yep watching a Ray White one on line now - 0 sales from 4 so far....
This is usually a very hot time of the year for the market right?
I think the first half of 2022 will be dominated by reopening borders and equilibration of migration which has been accrued while borders where closed. We still issued visas and residents permits even if the cheap labour couldn't come.
The second half we might really start to see some pressure as RBNZ catches up with inflation.
yeah but a lot of our under 35s are going to go at the same time i think.
Yet another article dangling hope of a buyers' market juuust around the corner
I think it will be a buyers market if the borders remain closed. If the housing market and economy fall too far they will just turn the immigration tap back on, problem solved.
I'm waiting for Luxon to sell his 4 investment properties, this will give a good signal as to where the market is heading. He will say it is to reduce accusations of conflicts of interest, but if he is a clever investor he will already have his exit strategy.
That's a bizarre signal you're waiting for there fella. Did it not occur to you he may not need to sell and is in it for the longterm?
Well he could make at least $4m by selling them, if the brightline test doesn't apply. I could stop working for the next 50 years (if inflation generally stayed below 3%) if $4m dropped into my lap and wouldn't need anything more to maintain my current lifestyle (which I'm happy with)
Alot of this does seem like the boy who cried wolf... is the wolf finally going to appear?
I've never understood the term "buyers market" when realestate values are falling. Even if you can find a lender willing to finance buying would be like trying to catch a falling knife. It's the point in the cycle when buyers need to exercise most patience and caution. Housing is pretty illiquid and drops like a brick when credit dries up.
Advertising message deleted. Our readers don't appreciate advertising disguised as commentary being slipped into the comment thread Steve.
You highly recommend your own business? Is this advertising?
Something tells me you aren't going to last long on this comments section lol
In some markets this is already occurring. I track the Lower Hutt housing market and the wellington market.
Lower hutt has as of today 425 listings (a 5 year high) and double this time last year. current sales are 40 listings a week - meaning there is 10.5 weeks SOH. Something listed today is likely to take until late Feb to sell - considering sales will be few over the last week of Dec and first week Jan.
Of the 425 listings - 171 have been on the market more than a month (41% of all listings).
Approx 50% - 204 of the listings have an advertised price. Some houses list with a price - most are adding a price when they fail to sell at auction or tender. Those with a price - approximately 30% have decreased that price since listing with a price - with the average price decrease been $47K. One house has dropped the price from $1.06M to 900K and is still yet to sell after 2 months on the market.
A buyers market is usually defined as
1. More houses than buyers- usually 2.75 months stock (11 weeks) is a definite buyers market - Lower hutt would be close on this.
2. Majority of houses list with a price and dont use auction or tender as there are not enough buyers to create competition.
3. The majority of houses listed have been on the market longer than 4 weeks
3. Sellers begin to increasingly decrease listing prices in order to sell their house quickly.
All of the above factors were used to categorise Sydney's housing market decline in 2018-19. The total decline in that market was 12% from the mid 2017 peak.
Good intel. Appreciated.
Thanks for the interesting stats. Do you have the same stats for Wellington?
Agents are finally admitting the market is changing -- take a lot for an agent to say that
Thats to get you selling ( best you sell now before price drop ) reverse psychology.
What? "Bargain" house prices next year?
For me, a bargain means achieving a purchase that implies an extremely satisfying level of value. So, prices for a simple 3-bed 1980s style house in a tidy area would need to adjust to around $450,000 tops, to offer that value based on multiples of average salary.
Have to see if those 100 house landlords are highly leveraged, with interest rates going up, be interesting, especially with all these houses going on the market now, can they sell them quick enough to pay increased rates and taxes. Maybe its nothing, maybe its something, we will see.
But just maybe we can get to something that looks normalish for average incomes.
What is the replacement value of the house? if you are to build the same house today, how much it will cost you (forget about the land cost)?
'A buyer's market and bargain house prices could be on the cards.'
And these cards would be -Tarot?
All the evidence says this has not been sustainable for years and has only lasted this long due to Govt. supporting restrictive policies that aid and abet monopoly rentiers.
The evidence says 'not if,' the cards say 'when.'
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