The average house price in New Zealand fell to $340,000 in June, from $345,000 in May.

The number of houses sold in June was the lowest for at least 10 years and was over forty percent down on the number sold at the same time last year.

REINZ President Mr Murray Cleland commented: “As with the latest business confidence statistics, there isn’t a lot of confidence in the residential property market at present.”

Mr Cleland added: “People are generally deciding to stay put and deferring decisions on buying and selling until a clearer trend emerges. Where values are weaker, the explanation is often that people are selling because they are on employment transfer and our agents report that price expectations are having to be lowered to facilitate faster sales.”

• House prices are 2.2 percent lower than a year ago, when New Zealand’s median house price was $347,500.
• Prices are down 3.4 percent from their peak of $352,000 in November 2007.
• The number of properties sold fell from 7,474 in June 2007 to 4,373 in June 2008. This was the lowest number of sales in June since at least 1999.
• The average number of days to sell a house was 53, the highest June figure since 2001.

Compared with prices in May, nine out of New Zealand’s twelve regions reported price falls in June, and three reported rises.

On an annual basis, nine of the twelve regions saw a fall in prices, two reported rises and one region recorded no change.

Annual New Zealand House Price Changes