Asking price for homes slips to lowest in more than 4 years

Friday, 10 January 2025

Wellington was one of the regions that bucked the trend.

The average asking price for homes slipped 0.3% to $842,476 in December, taking it down to the lowest level since April 2021, according to realestate.co.nz, formerly the Real Estate Institute.

Its figures aggregate data from all real estate agents across the country, covering about 95% of listings and also show asking prices down 4.7% on December last year.

The volume of new listings slumped to a 17-year low and was down 60% on November, spokesperson Vanessa Williams said.

“The market usually comes off the boil in December, but this year has been exceptionally lukewarm.”

Its figure showed the average asking price for a home in Auckland falling 1.2% in December to $1,006,981, down 4.7% on the same month last year.

But Wellington fared better with an 8.8% monthly rise to $875,685, up 1.9% on last year.

Managing director of New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty (Wellington), Glen Jones, said there were differences in figures across Wellington city, Upper and Lower Hutt, Porirua and the Kapiti Coast, but ultimately vendors had become more realistic in their expectations.

“Vendors are far more aware where the market is. Two years ago when we were doing appraisals and telling people what their house was worth … they were very challenging conversations.”

Vendors who were selling and buying in the same market usually had more realistic expectations. He predicted a sluggish first six months for Wellington’s market this year, but with a small burst when the next OCR review, in February, is due.

Sellers who’d had their homes on the market over Christmas could also expect to join fresh new listings which could make things harder, he said. Ultimately Wellington’s job insecurity was also affecting the market.

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“But good properties, well located, well conditioned, well presented are still selling providing the vendor is realistic.”

The average asking price in Canterbury was down 5.2% on November and down 5.3% on last December.

Auckland’s largest real estate agent, Barfoot & Thompson, published a more upbeat report on the Auckland market earlier this week, saying it had seen a “modest recovery” in sales prices continue into December.

It reported its average sales price rose to $1,132,795 in December, up 4.7% on the November average and 0.4% on the same month last year.

Managing director Peter Thompson also said sales numbers in December remained “solid”.

Williams played down the different takes on the market, saying the price movements in both reports were small.

“Honestly, if I look at both of those data sets, they tell me that pricing is flat. It's really been pretty stagnant now for two years.”

Bank economists are expecting house prices to rise about 6% or 7% this year.

But Williams said she expected prices to remain quite static until the stock of unsold homes — which stood at just under 30,000 in December — came down.

“When that will happen, I'm not sure. It could be towards the middle of the year. It could be towards the latter half of the year.

“I think we will see movement this year because of the drop in interest rates, but whether it's mid or late this year will depend on the sell-through rate of stock.”