A record number of houses are on the market in New Zealand. There are almost 57,000 residential properties on realestate.co.nz’s website today.
“That’s the equivalent of a For Sale sign on every home in Wellington City,” said Realestate’s Chief Executive, Alistair Helm.
“At this time last year there were 42,500 residential properties for sale, so we’re looking at an increase of 35% of homes for sale - a huge increase.”
A common international real estate practice is to calculate how long it would take to sell the entire property inventory.
“At the beginning of 2007 it would have taken 4.5 months but that’s dramatically increased, it would take 8 months to sell every house that’s on the market today”.
At the regional level, there are some major differences in housing inventory:
Inventory of Houses (Months)
| Region | March 2007 | June 2007 | Sept 2007 | Dec 2007 |
| Northland | 15 | 20 | 24 | 23 |
| Auckland | 4 | 5 | 7 | 8 |
| Waikato / BOP | 6 | 7 | 9 | 9 |
| Hawke’s Bay | 5 | 5 | 9 | 7 |
| Manawatu / Wanganui | 4 | 5 | 7 | 8 |
| Taranaki | 4 | 4 | 7 | 7 |
| Wellington Region | 3 | 4 | 6 | 6 |
| Nelson / Marlborough | 5 | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| Canterbury / Westland | 4 | 5 | 7 | 8 |
| Central Otago Lakes | 12 | 16 | 14 | 12 |
| Otago | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Southland | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| New Zealand | 5 | 5 | 7 | 8 |
Commenting on the figures, Mr. Helm said:
“The high numbers of houses for sale will not only put pressure on prices, it will put heat on the marketing strategies used as well, vendors will face the challenge of pricing their properties realistically and then attracting the attention of potential buyers.”