Compared to a year earlier, November’s median price was up 2.3 percent nationwide.
Photo: Unsplash/ Jakub Żerdzicki
New Zealand’s housing market slowed sharply in November, with a big downturn in sales numbers compared to the month before, data from the Real Estate Institute shows.
Compared to a year earlier, November’s median price was up 2.3 percent nationwide to $808,000 but sales were down 5.7 percent.
Seasonally adjusted, sales were down 4.6 percent. Auckland was down 9.1 percent, Nelson down 15.7 percent and Canterbury down 7.2 percent, while Northland was up 21.6 percent and Hawkes Bay up 5 percent.
“This November marked only the sixth time in 33 years that New Zealand’s November sales count was below October’s, underscoring how unusual it is for activity to ease at this point in the seasonal cycle. Despite the slower sales pace, median prices have remained largely resilient, supported by a stable underlying demand,” chief executive Lizzy Ryley said.
ANZ said that it was likely house prices would end the year flat, not up 0.5 percent or 1 percent, as they previously predicted. Any increase next year could happen later than forecast, they said.
Westpac’s economists said the market had “hit an air pocket” in November.
Ryley said given the confidence and positivity that agents in the market were reporting, the institute had decided to look back over the quarter to see a wider trend.
Over three months, the number of sales was up 2.4 percent in the quarter compared to the same time a year earlier and median prices up 0.2 percent.
Outside Auckland, sales numbers were up 4.1 percent and median prices 1.5 percent.
“What we have seen is there’s quite a lot of properties being listed,” Ryley said.
“If you look at the listings up 10 percent year-on-year people are feeling a bit more confident, the median price is increasing slightly so when there is a lot more properties on the market the buyer goes ‘oh I’ve got time to consider’.
“I think that’s what I would say we thought when we looked at the November numbers.
“If you look at it across three months you can smooth it out across September, October and November and it shows signs of cautious growth.”
Twelve out of the sixteen regions reported an increase in median prices year-on-year.
Canterbury hit a record median price, up 3 percent year-on-year to $720,000. There were two Territorial Authority (TA) records in Hawke’s Bay’s Wairoa District at $725,000, up 16.7 percent and in Canterbury’s Waimate District at $549,000, up 6.6 percent.
The national median days to sell measured dropped by one day to 40.
Excluding Auckland, it dropped by two days, also to 40.
Ryley said the market had been slower than some would have expected this year.
“I think everybody thought it would get better faster. If you look globally, however, we’re not an outlier.
“It feels actually in the latter part of the year, the property market is moving more positively, … even though it is slow and cautious.
“We saw the OCR shifts, mortgages become more affordable, that two basis point drop, new home buyers feeling like they potentially can afford to get into the market.”
She said when she joined the institute six months ago, some parts of the country were doing well and others not.
“That has stabilised… First home buyers and owner-occupiers continue to dominate the market. With plenty of choice available, some buyers remain cautious and are taking time before deciding to purchase. However, salespeople around the country have reported a growing sense of optimism in the market. They’ve also observed that while sales have decreased slightly, some buyers – and some vendors who are selling and buying in the same market – are finding it easier to manage, due to easing interest rates, the November OCR cut, and more flexible lending criteria. These all seem to be contributing to a cautiously optimistic view heading into 2026.”
There were 1337 sales by auction in November, or 18.4 percent of all sales.
The house price index, which smoothes out variation in the median sales price due to the types of property being sold, is down 0.2 percent year-on-year but up 0.1 percent month-on-month.
She said there was optimism for 2026.
“It’s a sensitive market and that confidence is is quite thin…but I do think that the property market is quite stably growing now.”
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