Fewer homes available to buy

Housing stock is at its lowest level in 14 years, providing slim pickings for those wanting to buy homes during lockdown, latest realestate.co.nz data shows.

Releasing its August report on Wednesday, realestate.co.nz says there were 12,249 houses for sale in August – down 31.9 percent on the same time last year.

Realestate.co.nz spokesperson Vanessa Williams said this was the lowest level of stock on record.

“We’ve never seen it this low in housing stock… even in April [2020] there were still 20,000 homes available,” Williams told Newshub.

Across 16 regions, seven had record low levels of houses available for sale in August.

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Those regions were Coromandel, Central Otago/Lakes district, Canterbury, the West Coast, Nelson and Bays, Taranaki, and the Bay of Plenty.

The national average asking price reached $900,671 in August, rising 9.7 percent year-on-year.

Williams said this was the first time the price tipped $900,000.

“Because there’s not enough supply and demand is still very strong, sellers are able to command a higher price – and also get it,” Williams added.

Second-lowest month on record for property listings

Over the month, 6504 properties were listed online, making August the second-lowest month on record for new listings, Williams said.

Listings were only lower in April 2020, after the four-and-a-half week nationwide lockdown.

On a typical workday, realestate.co.nz had between 300 and 500 new listings, Williams said.

But following the level 4 lockdown, the number of new daily listings dwindled to less than 150.