Buyers have upper hand in housing market with high stock levels & flat asking prices

Property / news

Housing stock for sale at 10-year high at the end of September suggesting the buyer's market continues into spring

2nd Oct 24, 5:00am by Greg Ninness

A surge of new listings onto the housing market in September pushed up already high stock levels, meaning buyers will continue to have plenty to choose from as the market pushes through spring.

Property website Realestate.co.nz received 9276 new listings in September. That was up 15.3% compared to August, and up 18.7% compared to September last year.

That pushed the total stock of residential properties available for sale on Realestate.co.nz to 30,028, up 1.5% compared to August, and up a whopping 27.4% compared tp September last year.

This means the total stock of properties for sale on the website is at a 10-year high for the month of September.

The national average asking price of properties on the website remained within its recent range at $870,110.

"For almost two years our national average asking price has hovered between $860,000 and $890,000," Realestate.co.nz spokesperson Vanessa Williams said.

That's the longest stretch of price stability on the website since its records began 17 years ago.

"We've never seen prices remain flat for this long," Williams said.

The combination of high overall stock levels, plenty of fresh stock and flat asking prices, suggests buyers are spoilt for choice.

However, while the latest figures from Realestate.co.nz suggest there are plenty of people wanting to sell their properties, we will have to wait another week or two when the Real Estate Institute of NZ's sales figures come out, to know if the apparent enthusiasm of vendors wanting to sell is matched by action from people wanting to buy.

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30 Comments

by Averageman | 2nd Oct 24, 11:26am 1727821619

Longest period of stability....

Having ever increasing prices without supporting national prosperity is stupid. All it achieves is larger and larger mortgages turning working kiwis into endless debt slaves for global banking interests.

by Crazy Horse | 2nd Oct 24, 9:59am 1727816356

"All it achieves is larger and large mortgages turning working kiwis into endless debt slaves for global banking interests." ...... @Averageman ....NAIL ....HIT .....ON ......HEAD !

And this is not a productive asset - it's a place where people live.

by johnkerikeri | 3rd Oct 24, 4:28pm 1727926083

Exactly correct I think/

by Houses Overpriced | 2nd Oct 24, 7:54am 1727808877

Total stock available has sky rocketed, economy in the doldrums, migration turning.. all points to a weak housing market

by Cote d'Azur | 2nd Oct 24, 8:05am 1727809528

Up 2.7% on the month.

Ka pai! 🥂

by NZGecko | 2nd Oct 24, 8:07am 1727809671

In this continuing NZ Wide housing crash, the flaccid market is having the resident SuperSpruikers and REA shrews going floppy.....Zwiffingerinthebreeze, Wingingit and TTPonziisme.

by wingman | 2nd Oct 24, 8:40am 1727811633

There's never been a better time to punt on property.

And that's confirmed by all the bearish comments here.

by Crazy Horse | 2nd Oct 24, 10:03am 1727816626

Great wingman - so have you maxed out all your mortgages, to grab that next Riverhead bargain ! Good luck to ya mate !

by NoRegrets | 2nd Oct 24, 8:44am 1727811855

From those numbers deduct those houses that are leaky, on flood plains, been rented for a long time, are new builds of poor quality, have non consented work and there isn’t much decent stock in Auckland unless you go way out.

by yeahrightmate | 2nd Oct 24, 8:50am 1727812223

It's true, there is a lot of low quality stock around making it very hard to find a good house in central Auckland. Feels like the market is very nuanced and really depends on local demand, suburb by suburb, street by street. A good home still fetches good money. But a dud home may now not sell at all.

by Nzdan | 2nd Oct 24, 10:36am 1727818605

And it's only the good homes that show up in the sales stats, so people celebrate a shift upwards in average prices.

by The Man3 | 2nd Oct 24, 8:56am 1727812586

Looking at these figures, I am having a very hard job understanding where so many on here are saying that there is this housing crash??

As you can see Christchurch is in positive territory and there is nothing surer than prices are going to increase.

We sll know Auckland snd some other places are overpriced snd difficult to buy into, but moaning snd groaning about them is not going to improve your own situation.

by wingman | 2nd Oct 24, 9:19am 1727813959

You're 100% correct, it's not a crash, it's in their heads.

It doesn't matter how bad the market is, there's always pockets where there's value. Elevated interest rates that are on the way down and lots of choice.

The best time to scout around in decades.

by Averageman | 2nd Oct 24, 9:31am 1727814705

Yeah...Wellington is going gang busters...tui. Take your self interest blinkers off, its not all just about where you have leveraged interest.

by starrider | 2nd Oct 24, 1:28pm 1727828896

Still in denial I see. I thought all the spruikers had finally woken up.

This "crash" that isn't, according to the sea level dweller north of Auckland, was estimated to last 5 to 10 years (by savvy commentators in 2022). So I don't expect to see 2021 peak pricing till 2027 at the earliest and 2032 on the outside.

Here is a prime example of the current state of the market. Property details for 25 Jervois Road, Jervoistown, Napier, 4112 (propertyvalue.co.nz)

2013 - Sold $900k

2020 - Sold $1.95m

2024 - Sold $1.5m (172 days on the market)

Considering realtor fees and inflation, the vendor lost over $600k.

by General Comment | 2nd Oct 24, 4:00pm 1727838053

2020 buyer paid way over the odds for that one.

Considering they also put in a new wastewater system the pain will be even greater.

by malamah | 2nd Oct 24, 10:51am 1727819473

You know those are asking prices, right? Just checking.

by SND | 2nd Oct 24, 9:43am 1727815417

Look at the quote I got at the bottom of this article:

One common way of judging whether housing's price is in line with its fundamental value is to consider the ratio of housing prices to rents. This is analogous to the ratio of prices to dividends for stocks.

~ Janet Yellen

Seems too difficult to understand for some here.

by Averageman | 2nd Oct 24, 9:47am 1727815664

How do you spell "bubble" indeed. All about tax free gain.

by Toye | 2nd Oct 24, 10:00am 1727816411

House stock still going up.

Price discovery coming to a desperate vendor near you.

by Crazy Horse | 2nd Oct 24, 11:04am 1727820260

I could fix the NZ housing situation today !

1. Eliminate the accommodation supplement - if a property has to be rented out at well above its "market rate", that renters can't afford, its taking money out of the economy and putting into landlord's pockets - which goes straight to the banksters !

2. Capital Gains tax - on all property, all the time - except the family home and of which there is only ONE with no exceptions ! - then put that money to fix all those potholes etc etc !

by wingman | 2nd Oct 24, 2:41pm 1727833269

Capital Gains Tax also means Capital Losses Tax. If there was one, right now, the govt would be coughing up billions.

by Nzdan | 2nd Oct 24, 3:16pm 1727835376

What universal law states that a Capital Gains Tax must be offset by a Capital Losses "Tax"? When you call it a tax, are you saying people are also taxed on their losses?

But anyway, I know what you mean. They won't be paying out billions because it'll be called "losses carried forward" and being ringfenced the only way someone could realize this capital loss "tax" is by selling another property for a profit and reducing their taxable income by offsetting this brought forward loss.

by Crazy Horse | 2nd Oct 24, 5:13pm 1727842398

No capital gains (or losses) on the family home wingman ......while why would you be worried at all about the govt forking out billions for capital losses, as according to your good self, there will never be any capital losses in Riverhead !!!

by malamah | 2nd Oct 24, 5:30pm 1727843454

They literally already are, did you not read the Budget? There is not enough money being generated for favored capital gains regime, so the governments hand is forced to spend billions more than they campaigned on.

Not to mention Accom Suppliment which exists to cover a gap between what fools borrowed and what the market has capacity to pay.

Why on earth would that money need to be funneled directly into the pockets of asset holders? Why should it?

by powerupkiwi | 2nd Oct 24, 2:48pm 1727833725

Abolish zoning

by EpsomArtsandCrafts | 2nd Oct 24, 10:40am 1727818841

Apart from farming and Australian money going into Queenstown, I can't see there would be enough buyers out there for all this housing stock.

by Greeneggsandham | 2nd Oct 24, 11:06am 1727820411

I think the economic indicators point to this being a disappointing summer selling season overall. I’m sure it will vary from market to market, and may increase slightly up if the sales volumes rise, but overall this won’t be the start of the next upwards cycle.

by agnostium | 2nd Oct 24, 7:57pm 1727852235

This is way too balanced and unemotional.

Have you thought about picking a side (DGM vs Spruiker) and getting stuck in?

by nickp | 2nd Oct 24, 10:07pm 1727860020

Both Auckland and Wellington have high stock of smaller apartments

Houses in Wellington seem to be selling well, apartments and those under body corporates are suffering with high insurance costs.

Wellington seems to have a lot of central student flats also sitting on the market.

With a one percent drop in interest rates you may see houses pulled and rented and the market change to sellers quote quick