{"id":625353,"date":"2026-04-23T08:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/625353\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:50:14","slug":"housing-market-house-sales-keep-falling-as-first-home-buyers-drive-demand-the-front-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/625353\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing market: House sales keep falling as first-home buyers drive demand \u2013 The Front Page"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The Auckland market remains soft, first-home buyers are propping
\n up demand and the rental market is showing signs of strain.\n <\/p>\n

At the same time, global uncertainty and inflation risks are starting to cloud the outlook.<\/p>\n

Cotality NZ chief property economist Kelvin Davidson told The Front Page that the persistence of weaker sales suggested something more than a simple start-of-year adjustment.<\/p>\n

\u201cJanuary\u2019s weakness could have been explained by activity being pulled forward into December to nab a generous cash-back, but that softness has carried through February and March as well,\u201d Davidson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve now had three subdued months in a row, which indicates a weaker first quarter than expected. It\u2019s not a sharp downturn, but it does show that confidence is still muted and buyers are taking their time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davidson said that first-home buyers are active. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirst home buyers continue to play a major role in New Zealand\u2019s market, accounting for more than 27% of purchases nationally across the first quarter, well above their long-term average of around 22%,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLower house prices compared to a few years ago, reduced mortgage rates and KiwiSaver withdrawals are all helping.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Auckland, their share was higher again at around 30%, with even stronger concentrations in other parts of the country, including Hamilton (33%) and the wider Wellington area (37%).<\/p>\n

Cotality\u2019s latest data shows sales volumes in March were down -2.4% compared to the same time last year, following falls of -7.6% in January and -3.1% in February.<\/p>\n

Listen to the full episode<\/a> to hear more about:<\/p>\n

Regional differencesFirst-home buyersRenting and investor demandOutlook for 2026.<\/p>\n

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime\/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.<\/p>\n

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Auckland market remains soft, first-home buyers are propping up demand and the rental market is showing signs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[8845,10960,64,63,99,22947,36018,39600,10167,21567,164,41794,302981,5588,1899,1481,7688,71294,4694,17025,15927,320,19434,22671],"class_list":["post-625353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-across","tag-as","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-buyers","tag-continued","tag-decline","tag-demand","tag-drive","tag-economy","tag-falling","tag-firsthome","tag-front","tag-have","tag-house","tag-housing","tag-keep","tag-market","tag-page","tag-sales","tag-the","tag-volumes","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}