Buyer Confidence On The Rise As Growing Number Of Homeowners Look To Sell

A Trade Me survey of members considering buying or selling a property shows homeowner confidence is, alongside the weather, warming up.

The December survey of more than 1,700 Trade Me members, actively engaged in property searches, saw 57 per cent of buyers say it’s a good time to buy, up from 53 per cent in October.

However, on the sell side of the fence, just 18 per cent of homeowners agree now is a good time to sell with 46 per cent remaining neutral.

Trade Me Property Customer Director Gavin Lloyd says it’s easy to understand why there remains some uncertainty. However, previously held concerns are easing with 46 per cent of homeowners indicating they are selling, or looking to do so in the next year (up from 35%).

“When we surveyed our members in October, ‘getting the price I’m looking for’ was homeowners' top concern (75%), whereas our most recent pulse check showed this number to have fallen significantly (57%).

“In fact, all other key concerns from a homeowner perspective including time to sell, market conditions and having a big enough pool of buyers all recorded falls on October’s survey results suggesting a growing confidence in the market.”

Mr Lloyd says Summer is often a time when housing market momentum begins to pick up with residential for sale listings on site already up 20 per cent on the same time last year.

“Trade Me Property has the largest number of listings across all property sites in New Zealand so we’ve a lot of good, robust data pointing to what’s happening in the market. There’s certainly plenty of homes to choose from, and our survey shows a growing number of buyers hungry to purchase.”

Of those surveyed, 39 per cent said they were looking to buy property within the next 12-months (+9% on October), and 27 per cent in the next six months.

“We saw a small decline in the number of respondents indicating they are looking to buy in the next one to two years (from 14% to 11%), suggesting falling interest rates and cuts to the OCR are having a positive effect on buyer plans and cutting back the path to purchase timings.

“However, caution remains amongst buyers with cost of living and mortgage payments being cited as top concerns, although these have eased since our October survey,” says Lloyd.

Cost of living is down 5 per cent to 41 per cent and mortgage payments down 7 per cent to 35 per cent.

Many buyers also pointed out growing competition to secure a property with 44 per cent of respondents feeling it’s a competitive market.

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