Listings tight in June housing market

14 July 2011

Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) data on the New Zealand housing market for June 2011 showed 5,229 unconditional sales for the month, up by 654 sales on June last year. The volume of sales for June 2011 was 537 sales lower than the May 2011 figures, a decline broadly in line with normal seasonal patterns. The national median house price rose by $10,000 to $360,000 (+2.9%) with some significant regional variations within this movement.

Northland recorded the strongest lift in prices for the month of June (+13.2%), followed by Central Otago Lakes (+7.0%) and Southland (+2.2%). Hawkes Bay recorded a decline (5%), as did Otago (5%). While volumes trended downwards from May 2011 in line with the seasonal pattern, there was a strong lift in volumes compared to June 2010 with Nelson/Marlborough, Auckland and Waikato/Bay of Plenty all recording increases of more than 20%. The Auckland region continued to dominate the volumes in the market, with transactions in this region representing 40% of the national volume. The median price for Auckland eased slightly from May, down by $3,000, but up $16,000 from the same time last year.

“The June results show that activity levels are recovering slowly with prices more or less flat, but we are getting strong indications from agents in many of our regions that the supply of properties is really tightening”, said REINZ Chief Executive Helen O'Sullivan. “Rather than an influx of buyers, we are seeing very low levels of listings as sellers continue to sit on their assets”.

Corroborating this, the latest BNZ-REINZ market survey of real estate agents indicates that the shortage of listings is now the main reason holding buyers back from purchasing a property. A net 34.2% of respondents cite the lack of suitable properties available for sale as the main reason holding buyers back, up from 22.4% in last month’s survey.

Auckland, Manawatu/Wanganui, Canterbury/Westland and Taranaki are all reporting shortages of properties for sale, whereas Northland, Hawkes Bay, Otago and Southland are not yet indicating these concerns.

The national median ‘days to sell’ (measuring the number of days from listing date to unconditional date) improved by 1 day from 45 days in May to 44 days in June. The days to sell were also 45 in June 2010. Canterbury/Westland recorded the shortest days to sell at 35 days followed by Auckland on 36 days and Southland the next shortest at 42 days. Northland recorded the longest number of days to sell at 78 days, with Taranaki next longest at 72 days. Over the past five years the median days to sell has averaged 41 days across New Zealand.

To Read View The R059 Reinz Property Market Report Click Here

ENDS

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