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Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n
If you’re in the market for a new house, you might be wondering what to offer on any you’re interested in.<\/p>\n
Do you offer the asking price? Try to cut 10 percent off? How hard do you negotiate?<\/p>\n
As new data from Realestate.co.nz shows a 1.5 percent dip in average asking price in January, Cotality has confirmed that the gap between what sellers are asking and buyers<\/a> are willing to pay<\/a> appears to be shrinking.<\/p>\n Chief economist Kelvin Davidson said, excluding auctions, the median discount that buyers paid on the original list price of properties sold in 2025 was 3.8 percent.<\/p>\n It was 4.2 percent in 2024, 4.6 percent in 2023, 5.1 percent in 2022 and 2.9 percent in 2021.<\/p>\n Gisborne had the biggest discount, at 5.9 percent. That was followed by Northland at 5.5 percent and the West Coast at 5 percent. Taranaki had the smallest, at 3.1 percent.<\/p>\n Davidson said that could be affected by sellers in Taranaki setting more reasonable asking prices to start with.<\/p>\n “In some ways it’s a marketing tool. You’re never quite sure if someone is just hoping for too much of whether they’re actually setting a reasonable asking price or what their true motivations might be.<\/p>\n “Over time the availability of information to both sellers and buyers has widened. Any time, anybody can look up a free valuation estimate or you could come to Cotality, for example, and pay for a higher grade one but either way that information is widely available. It suggests that the chances vendors can sneak an above-market asking price in there have probably reduced because everybody’s got the same information and they are going to know what’ s unrealistic.<\/p>\n “I guess it applies to buyers as well \u2026the chances putting in a sneaky 10 percent under offer and getting it accepted are also reduced because maybe asking prices are more realistic to start with.<\/p>\n “The scope for an excessive price is probably reduced but at the same time the scope for buyers to get a sneaky deal is probably reduced.”<\/p>\n The data does not include properties that went to auction.<\/p>\n Property prices have been broadly flat in recent years even as vendor discounts have reduced, suggesting it is sellers who have shifted their expectations.<\/p>\n “The longer the flat patch goes on the more people are saying ‘I just want to get this done I’ll set a more reasonable asking price’,” Davidson said.<\/p>\n “I think if you’re a market watcher, maybe you’ve been thinking about selling, maybe you held back because you thought ‘oh the market might pick up I’ll wait’. Now you might not necessarily be\u2026 you have to sell at some point. I think in general the fact those discounts have been slowly trending down suggests people are just being a bit more realistic than they might have been a few years ago.”<\/p>\n Realestate.co.nz said national stock levels rose 2.3 percent year-on-year in January, the first time the number of available properties for sale hit more than 33,000 in January since 2014.<\/p>\n Gisborne led the pack, with a 15.1 percent increase in available stock.<\/p>\n