1 May 2009

Source: NZPA

New listings of houses for sale fell sharply last month, hinting at the possibility the buyers’ market for residential property could be coming to an end.

Nationwide there were 10,453 new house listings in April, down 34 percent from a year earlier and down 21 percent on March, listing site Realestate.co.nz reported today in its monthly survey NZ Property Report.

“The New Zealand property market has been a buyers’ market for the last 18 months, however this is a significant drop in new listings prior to winter,” chief executive Alistair Helm said.

“The reduced inventory will start to favour sellers, and could result in upward pressure on prices in coming months.”

No part of the country escaped the drop in new house listings, with the biggest fall in Northland where the reduction was 56 percent from a year earlier. Nelson had the smallest fall, down 5 percent.

Asking price expectations for new listings showed little change.

The truncated mean asking price, which decreases the influence of extreme values, was $405,936 last month.

That was little changed from $405,710 in March, and down 1.7 percent from $412,903 in April 2008.