Only the top and bottom of the country entered spring with fewer houses on the market than a year earlier, according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ), emphasizing the glut of properties currently for sale.
August's REINZ data, released on Friday, showed the national inventory level up 30% year-on-year to 29,579. Although this was down 977 from 30,556 in July, it shows the real estate industry entering the traditionally busy spring period with a lot of properties on the books. That means it's a buyer's market.
Inventory refers to the number of properties being actively marketed and listed for sale. REINZ measures inventory based on the number of weeks of sales current listing volumes represent.
REINZ notes all regions across the country had an inventory increase in August year-on-year. Taranaki has now had 34 consecutive months of year-on-year inventory increases, while Northland's had 29 consecutive months where inventory has been at least 15% higher than the same month the year before.
Thirteen regions recorded a year-on-year increase in listings in August. Bay of Plenty and Otago have now had seven consecutive months where listings have been at least 15% higher than the same month the previous year. And Hawke’s Bay has recorded eight consecutive months where listings have been at least 15% higher than the same month the year before.
Across the regions, only Northland and Southland ended August with less housing inventory than they had heading into last spring. Northland had 44 weeks of inventory in August, one week less than at the same time last year. Southland had 19 weeks of inventory in August, two weeks less than at the same time last year.
Elsewhere around the country, Auckland entered spring with 29 weeks of inventory, four weeks more than at the same time last year, Waikato was up 11 weeks year-on-year at 30 weeks, Bay of Plenty was up three weeks with 27 weeks worth of inventory. Gisborne was up a week at 12 weeks. Hawke's Bay was up six weeks at 23 weeks. Taranaki was up one week at 22 weeks. Manawatu/Whanganui was up three weeks at 26 weeks. Wellington was up three weeks at 14 weeks. Nelson/Tasman/Marlborough was up a week at 25 weeks. West Coast was up 10 weeks at 39 weeks. Canterbury was up a week at 16 weeks, and Otago was up one week at 18 weeks.
REINZ says the total number of properties sold nationwide fell by 40 to 5,685 in August, year-on-year.
Housing inventory
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114 Comments
My wife was watching te TV series location location location last night.
[Whenever it was filmed] one couple were struggling to buy a 3 bedder on the north shore for less than $1m.
A quick search on trademe shows 263 properties available on the north shore under $1m. Most by negotiation.
Interesting.
Currently over 250 for less than $1 million.
Chump change, I wonder how all the savvy property investors/new immigrants/FHB have missed snapping up all these below market value properties. Craziness if you ask me. /s
I can't wait for the spring surge when listings will skyrocket with all the properties, that have been withdrawn over the last 24 months, are relisted by ever more desperate vendors. Plus all the investors/speculators and over leveraged trades that need to off load.
Quite sad for the FHBs that stretched themselves and bought over the last few years.
Facing job insecurities, negative equity and increasing repayments (without increased income).
Better for fhb to wait for things to properly bottom out and prices ro rise a little bit over 6 months or so. All to be certain it's the right time.l and jobs are secure. They might overspend by $20-50k or so because of the wait...but the overall mental haalth benefit whilst they raise a young family is more that worth it.
I still don't understand what you are saying. Are you saying Wingman's claim that his Cul de Sac anecdata is not representative of New Zealand. Then yes, I agree, that was my point, it is not representative of anything except his cul-de-sac.
Auckland is not representative of the rest of the country but the regions often follow Auckland, up and down.
It's just Wingman's usual "boosterism". While everybody else is subject to the market whims, not Wingman because he's a savvy and astute investor who has the intuition to buy in the right place at the right time and well under market value.
I don't know him personally, but I picture he's the sort of guy at a social gathering who feels the need to outshine everybody else by "one upping" the conversations with his own bigger and better story.
Incorrect, I don't normally attend social gatherings, and if I do, it's normally just with a few local guys around here.
The bluster from the socialists here is amazing - the kiwi economic world is allegedly collapsing, but when evidence is provided that it might not be true, the reds emerge threatening death taxes, wealth taxes, land taxes and more income taxes.
It's amazing there's so many leftists on a business website.
If I was to waffle on about the coming Great Depression I'd get loads of thumbs up. The smart people will be scouting around looking for the bargains, not predicting kiwi property paralysis.
It's true that kiwis despise success.
by Amokk | 16th Sep 24, 11:57am
All I hear is “There's a brand-new subdivision, folks, and a few houses for sale right where I live—beautiful houses, by the way. And let me tell you, the traffic? It's gone way up. Big increase, just in the last couple of weeks. Everybody's talking about it."
Haha very well done. Thanks Trump
Went to some open homes over the weekend.
Plenty of foot traffic at standalone 'family sized' houses in Chch around high 6/low 7 figures (however, in saying that a few places I viewed over a month ago - which I thought at the time 'this will sell easily' - are still for sale)
Townhouses looking dead AF though.
Big issue for many, I suspect, is worrying about future job prospects. E.g. if my income dried up tomorrow I could use savings to pay the house off, my wife has about as "guaranteed" of a job as it's possible to imagine, and even on the most basic of work we could 'make it work' albeit with a very different lifestyle (then again maybe I'd have more time to take life slowly).
But murphy's law the nanosecond we offer on a bigger house, something bad will happen.
We’re the same, could be a little more comfortable with one more bedroom given our large family, but not worth the risk. We really hunkered down for the last few years re lifestyle, one of the best decisions we’ve made. Returns are almost at a point where our lifestyle is covered, mid 30s with kids. We are very very very fortunate, but don’t see the value in pushing for more and more, really we’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel with less and less.
Less is good, but I have to admit all the good camping spots of old and good hikes have ben getting very busy these last few years. The cost of a growing population and the likes instagram, remote gets less remote and hidden gems become mainstream and sometimes ruined.
Even Americans know kiwi house prices are on the way up.
https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2024-09-12/new-zealand…
Americans? No...
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand house prices rose in the last month, with the data indicating more confidence in the market, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) said on Thursday.
Seasonally adjusted median house prices in August rose 2.1% on July, but were down 0.6% from August 2023, REINZ data showed.
Do you believe everything you read Wingman ? or do you have "confirmation bias"
Just because it's written from a US news source, it is just as credible on property as the "granny herald".
BTW had 10 years in the USA as a property investor, and things in the area I was, are not doing that well at all (and that comes from a personal source)
Also all the very best of luck with your properties in your selected area and may your property dreams all come true :)
Know nothing about the Florida property market - was in one specific area in the US only.
So many kiwis just don't realise how big the US property market is .... while here's the kicker, their stock market is bigger than the property market !
But not NZ - they are so short sighted and greedy, as so many jumped on the "property gravy train" and look where they are now - still living in the same house, but at triple the cost it would take to rebuy it !
'Tesla' I remember them.. weren't they the last big US car company? The one that kicked off the electric car trend? then their ceo went all whacky, designed a cyber-ute.. then insulted all their customers and focused on sending billionaires to Mars instead.
Shame coz the first cars they made seemed OK.
Probably won't be revoked, as Australian employers and Govt departments have had a field day cherry picking the best of NZ workers. But they may put limits on it - income, skills, age, health etc. I did think it was a bit mad that they agreed to take everyone even if you were going to be a burden on the taxpayer for decades to come.
Who would like to know what''s happening in Riverhead?
Yes, I know, lots of you.
Lifestyle properties up 60% in the last 3 years...and that's not a misprint.
As many will know, as an investor I am generally pro-property and defend NZ here constantly.
However, for the first time I am genuinely gloomy. Our best and brightest have left and we are replacing them largely with immigrants from developing nations. We do not have the calibre of leaders, nor the culture, to turn this around any time soon. We are insular, small-minded and lack aspiration. The left are obsessed with Net Zero and damaging our export engine, the right on undoing Maori influence, removing taxes on property investment and austerity.
tell me about it.
2 years ago there was no road bumps between Berhampore shops and Island Bay. 2 years later we have 7 road bumps and narrower road. We pay millions of dollars to get our city slower and more jammed, and we are told that's progress.
I wonder how would one feel when their house on fire and was told the fire trucks are too busy bumpping all the way.
Wellington is run by nihilistic Marxists, the value destruction there is out of control. People like Genter who abuse shop owners who dare challenge her authority. She doesn't care your foot traffic and revenue have halved.
In many ways, it deserved a good shoeing from the coalition.
Wellington has succumb to the weak culture of the previous government where nobody is willing to stand up and say no to spending, ideas, budgets etc for fear of their job, offending, being cancelled by colleagues etc. If their finance department had any gumption, they'd push back and tell the council to pull their heads in for the peoples sake. I left Wellington at the right time, and while it's nice to visit on occasion, I couldn't go back there soon.
Chin up Te Kooti,
We need to spend some money on Infrastructure
National - wants the debt off balance sheet thus PPP, the 36bil is a good start funding wise but I think may be a bad deal for NZers
Labour - want the debt on balance sheet but well screw up implementation and have no record of success beyond announcements.
WHAT NZ Needs is a middle path where we fund it on balance sheet and implement it ourselves, sometimes with out side specialist program management
So few NZers understand the complexities of such a program, they would rather be watching celebrity Treasure Island.
What did the Greens do specifically?
Haven't they only been a minority partner in one government, and 3 years as an invited partner in another one.
They must be so talented and awesome operators to be able to be responsible for the top 2 reasons we are in such a mess. Would love to know what they did specifically.
Time for a wake up call. We built our infrastructure when we were a wealthy country. We also had no experience or thought about replacement - as a young country this was the first build and we forgot it don't last forever.
We can now hardly afford to maintain (and haven't been) existing aged infrastructure, so I am not sure why peoples think we can maintain AND build more stuff to maintain.
Meanwhile, the handy raw materials (such as road metal) have been gobbled up. We now have to truck it from further and further away. Or import. Never mind what we will do when the next oil shock arrives (which is coming as exploration falls of a cliff due to current prices).
At some point reality will arrive. But by then Simeoen and co will have really screwed us.
We built our infrastructure when we were a wealthy country.
Agree and would add that we built it when globally we had access to cheap energy and materials. It's a double whammy, we are not as wealthy, the cost of energy and materials is going up and now there are even more countries fighting for those limited resources. You can slag of the left for focusing on net zero but it isn't a nice to have, it is a necessity to ensure we don't hit a wall.
Compare and despair wingman ...
https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/property/residential/sale/auckland/rodney/r…
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6546-Laurel-Valley-Rd-Dallas-TX-7524…
And in a very good neighbourhood in Dallas BTW ....
You.have hit the said nail on the head Zac !
It's because NZ runs itself as the "Cheap Charlie" of the OECD, while everyone screams "what's in it for me" as you have just shown by your comment, as where do you think those property taxes go ???
To pay for the infrastructure, water, utilities, roading etc etc
No wonder the USA has a way higher standard of living , while our best and brightest are leaving this country.
Absolutely NZGecko .....the banksters would totally change their lending practices, if they knew the mortgage holder could just walk away from the property, drop the keys in the local bankster branch and get the next plane outta here.
Instead in NZ, they can hound you for the REST OF YOUR LIFE for ANY outstanding debt, long after the property is sold at a mortgagee auction or similar.
While, if the property market on the East Coast of Aussie is now taking a turn into becoming a buyers market, watch the big 4 Aussie banks really start sweating !
Yep they can tolerate the NZ Housing market going down the karzi, like it has now for almost 3 years.......
But if the much bigger home Oz market goes down the filthy Ozzie dunny, they will be shisting bricks at the billions in bad loans they advanced, that built the towering TransTassie Ponzi - into the sky.
Yep Gecko ....watch the "big 4" here change their tune, if Aussie goes the way of the NZ property market - the big 4 have been milking NZ for years, while I always thought NZ is just the "test case" in how far you can push property prices up (more debt of course) before the market just doesn't function anymore .....what a clusterf**k !
interesting1234 - incorrect, you get a letter from your bank relinquishing ALL funds owing, so you are now "debt free" completely, while the banks name goes on the City records for the owner of the property.
However, you credit score drops to virtually nothing - so you won't be able to borrow again for years and will likely have restrictions on your credit card(s) etc - not a good place to be in the good ol' USA.
Alright, folks, listen up. Riverhead lifestyle block prices have soared by an incredible 143% in 5 years. But Coatesville? A staggering 167%! Only I could bring you these amazing numbers. So get ready to follow my lead and make the best deals—it’s going to be yuuuge!
It's all right here.....who wants to be a millionaire? Not many here, that's for sure.
They'd sooner discuss more taxes and socialism.
No, no, no, its up a million% since 2021 and the only part of NZ defying the largest NZ Property crash, since the Flinstones were running the planet.
Get in now, each property purchased in the RiverheadSwamp will ensure you effectively win the first Div in Lotto, on the next valuation.
Wingers guarantee written all over it. Get in now, Beee Quick.
The real winners in the swamplands of Riverhead are the floating ducks and the long legged stilts mate!
I really like your comedy session here Winger, but you are not elevating the sales for your swamplands@Riverheadestates Winger.
But anyway, love the banter with the indomitable muddyones!
They reckon you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
Fortunes are being made around Riverhead, I've been telling you guys about it ever since I've been here. Anyway I won't labour the subject any longer, I think we've beaten it to death.
Being a generous sort of chap, I just thought I'd spread the fairy dust.
I'm building a house there, so I'm off there this morning to check whether it's floated away after all the rain. hahaha
Will need full on scuba gear kept in a wicker outdoor storage box, on account of the suspended solids as the Coatesville wastewater manholes regularly overflow in moderate rain and the runoff makes its way through Riverhead.
"Honey, I think it's going to rain again". *assumes brace/fetal position on front lawn dressed like a Navy Seal*
Question - if a new sub division is finished and ‘ready’ to sell however only lists 1 of its 10 properties for sale, are the other 9 considered ‘on the market’ for statistics like we are reading above?
Or are the other 9 only considered ‘on the market’ when they are individually listed?
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