The housing market appears to have ended summer on a soft note, with stock for sale at a 10-year high and average asking prices almost flat.
Property website Realestate.co.nz had 36,870 residential properties available for sale at the end of March, which was the most in any month of the year since April 2015.
That was up 10.9% compared to the end of March last year, and 25.9% higher than March 2023.
It also means the number of homes available for sale has almost doubled (+90%) since March 2021 when the market was in boom mode.
Ten regions, including the main centre powerhouses of Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury, posted double digit percentage increases in stock for sale compared to March last year. See the chart below for the full regional stock figures.
Such high levels of stock at this time of year are a particular concern because March is traditionally the busiest month of the year for residential property sales, and sales begin to decline from April onwards as the market starts heading towards winter.
This could signal a potentially huge overhang of unsold stock over winter.
Prices were mostly flat, with the national average asking price declining marginally from $884,995 in February to $882,303 in March (-0.3%). The Auckland market had a bigger decline, from $1,082,500 in February to $1,069,837 in March (-1.2%), meaning asking prices in Auckland ended March at their lowest point so far this year.
"Despite signs of growing economic confidence, it's yet to translate into upward price pressure and with the stock levels the way they are, we don't anticipate this changing in the short term," Realestate.co.nz spokesperson Vanessa Williams said.
"With 36,780 properties on the market in March 2025, buyers were spoiled for choice," she said.
That reflected a shift in the market.
"Two years ago, many sellers hit pause, as high interest rates and election uncertainty made people cautious about listing," Williams said.
"That's clearly changed.
"There were 7586 more properties for sale last month than in the same month in 2023, showing how far we've come," she said.
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31 Comments
That's a sh!t load of stock to get through..
Good luck with price gouging..
Mount Listmore will be turning frosty soon.... Sellers should be getting their crampons ready
Interesting Otago and Lakes stock has the highest climb rate. Has the worm turned there finally?
Perhaps the retirees realise they have too far to travel to get medical attention in any serious situations. Nobody want to have to be ambulanced to Dunedin or Southland from the likes of Wanaka.
How do you get rid of excess stock... have a SALE!
Just like Briscoes. No one pays full price.
Spruikers be wishing they lived in the lucky country
The national median house price rose 0.4 per cent to a record $820,331 in March, in a rebound fuelled by optimism among home buyers following last month’s rate cut, data from Cotality shows.
Where Australia goes, New Zealand will follow.
New Zealanders are leaving for Australia, we are being left behind.
Considering Oz have been 2 years behind NZ on the housing boom, I'm calling dead cat bounce for them. Their media will do exactly as ours have and keep peddling optimism and articles to suit their narrative irrespective of what happens in the economy and the market.
Australian housing unaffordability is becoming worse than NZ's.
The final play they can still make to pump the market and delay the bust is allow people to use their Aussie Super to buy houses.
The end result will still be a bust, just a bigger one.
Looks like a pretty different market to me. Looking at the 10 year view, Aussie had a ~10% correction and bounced back pretty quick. Here, we had a near 20% fall and haven't really picked ourselves up again.
That Aussie index stops at the peak in 2021.
Good catch - ignore my post. Seems to be tricky to find a nice clean, up to date house price index graph (not a graph of annual price change).
Where's the Australian equivalent of Interest with nice simple data series that are free to use?
Here's something more useful - had to outsource to the Americans. Again, can go 10 year view and these datasets are up to Q3 2024. Suggests Australia aren't back to peak yet but have a much strongly recover than NZ.
the headlines have gone from
Stock building
Stock higher then normal
Mountains of stock
will we get Stinking pile of unsold stock hurting market next?
Probably.
I suspect there are some decent bids around 5-10% lower then current ask, I suspect we will probably get clearance in that space next summer as long as a global recession does not crush us. Buyers do not need to hurry here and they know it.
From a vendors perspective, will this be another winter of discontent? - probably.
This IS the new normal folks and it will take some sustainable fact based positives to resurrect the resident property besotted of old.
Constant flow of how hard to get a tenant in AKL, from just opinion to people offering $500 grocery credit
those wishing to add to their portfolio will drive a very hard bargain to compensate for the risks
I agree that it is likely a new normal - but I do wish someone with a statistics background would look into (what I suspect are) the real drivers of this new normal.
I suspect it's the 'boomer generation' demographic change - and that will stick around for 20 to 25 years. More of the boomer generation are retiring each year - hence, lots of homes on the market are boomers seeking to move towns and/or downsize in price in relation to their retirement. And then there are likely a whole lot more estates on the market, than in any previous/past years.
Someone should look into these specific demographic factors to find out what percentage of the whole market stock fit into these categories.
It would be a better statistical measure for everyone to be aware of - including Government, planners, buyers and sellers.
My point - there is a reason for these high stock rates - and it isn't mainly interest rates.
Yes, you need to leave the party before it turns feral.
I don't think it will get feral - if by that you mean house prices will sink a whole lot more because of it. I just think its likely the new norm - and if the house price market is to remain flat for 20-25 years (might not even keep up with overall inflation) - and statistics regarding the real trends are known... then everyone can make better decisions.
Houses will no longer been seen as investments but rather places to live - just like it used to be.
When we (as boomers) were growing up and raising the children, I didn't know a single person in our circle of friends who owned a residential rental. Knew lots of people who had invested in commercial properties - and lots of sections purchased by local builders - but rentals, I suspect were mainly apartments and 'co-operatives' (or whatever the category for the BlueChip type companies were). And we all know what happened there.
I'm just saying the old paradigm - the one we've been in for the last 20-25 years is over. But it won't be a bloodbath. Now we are entering the new paradigm. The bulk of retirees have no mortgages... so they (and their estate executors/family) can "hold" for a very long time. Decades, in fact.
I think you are spot on but it will have a detrimental impact on cities as a growing proportion of these retirees are forced to sell as they still have debt on their dwelling. So to unlock equity they have to leave the city to find a cheaper option: regions. So supply in cities will persist. I’d also hazard a guess the people/ dwelling will rise in the cities given the immigration demographics further depressing demand.
Yes, and I think that people per dwelling stat is already on the rise. At least that is the anecdotal evidence I hear from Aucklanders in particular. Additionally, a number of retirees are taking on boarders - again, adding to that growth in people/dwelling.
Why would a sane person hold onto an asset going nowhere, when there is a world of opportunities. Going nowhere for decades would be a disaster if the asset is not providing an above inflation outcome.
I agree, but unless we have good stats - and they forecast the new paradigm based on age demographics, I suspect many will 'hold' for lack of knowledge, especially if one can draw an income from the asset meantime. If a property is fully paid up - all rent and/or boarder income is considered by many to be near pure profit - aside from rates and management fees.
You can see by the new bridging mortgage product just announced this week - there is a target market for those retirees/executors wishing to hold.
Its been building up for a while. I suspect it will take Banks to actually start evacuating more of the bag holders, so job losses or massive reduction in council valuations triggering equity covenants. If bag holders are still making payments then banks are happy, so why sell.
We finally got our 1st home off the plan, have been researching the Auckland market and following auctions for a while. Good houses in ok locations still mostly selling in auction at the higher end estimate of sites like homes.co.nz
Townhouses and units in not-so-good location, or older/beaten up houses in good location seem to be struggling a bit more. Houses in flood-prone areas shown in Auckland council's flood viewer (here) are definitely struggling. We also saw a nice refurbished unit in Remuera struggling a lot to sell, developer bought for 850k circa 2022 and was asking 950k now after renovations - has been in market for a while and looks like they'll make a loss unless they decide to rent and wait for market to pick up.
Anyway, we got a 3 bed standalone for the same price that brand new 2 bed shared wall were selling for a couple of years ago in same area...
Congrats on the purchase
My best guess is that a combinations of factors will see a subdued market for a long time to come-and if so, I think that's good news. I see no reason to think that this government will be any more successful in solving the productivity issue than previous governments, the global outlook is far from encouraging and may well get worse and if the moves to free up more land for building are successful then the ingredients of a property boom will just not exist.
This would be some good news for my grandchildren if they want to stay here. Sadly, I see a different and less optimistic country than when I came here from Scotland over 21 years ago. I have enjoyed life here, but had I not been comfortably off, it would have been a somewhat different story. The cancer drugs I have taken since 2021 were not available through Pharmac-but would have been available through the NHS- cost well over $100,000, while without health insurance, my 2 operations last year would have cost me over $90,000.
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