OPINION:
Is this it? After years of anticipation has a housing market downturn finally begun?
And what could that mean for the wider economy?
Today's REINZ figures showed the national median house price has fallen for the second month in a row.
Sales volumes have slumped sharply - to the lowest level since 1992.
While years of false starts will keep many sceptical, some of the country's major economics teams are now calling it.
"A downward trend in the housing market has become cemented," wrote KiwiBank senior economist Jeremy Couchman. "Activity is cooling and house price growth is falling fast."
"The housing market has well and truly turned a corner," said ANZ senior economist Miles Workman.
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Advertise with NZME."The wind is coming out of the market's sails faster than expected," said ASB senior economist Mike Jones.
While price falls were still modest the big slump in sales meant the dynamic of the market had now significantly changed, Jones said.
"Even if we see some recovery in February house sales, the important point is that demand is no longer running ahead of supply."
The REINZ house price index (HPI) has now recorded back-to-back monthly falls following an unprecedented run of 18 consecutive price gains.
The HPI fell 1 per cent in December and today's data showed a further 1.5 per cent for January.
That took annual house price growth to just below 20 per cent - down sharply from a record highs above 30 per cent in the middle of last year.
Economists - including those at Treasury and the Reserve Bank - have been forecasting price falls for some time based on a range of factors including record levels of new building, low immigration, tightened investor and lending regulations and rising interest rates.
"Most importantly in our view, fixed-term mortgage rates have risen sharply since September, in anticipation of the OCR hikes that the Reserve Bank will deliver over the next couple of years," said Westpac chief economist Michael Gordon.
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Advertise with NZME."A tightening of loan-to-value limits and new responsible lending requirements are also weighing on housing demand right now. However, we suspect that these will be more short-lived factors while the new rules are being bedded in."
While Westpac had "long been predicting a turn to moderate house price declines" the timing had always been uncertain, he said.
"It now looks to be coming sooner than we had assumed."
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A housing market in decline could have a significant bearing on the outlook for consumer demand, he said.
In turn that could flow to "the extent of the OCR hikes that will be needed to keep inflation in check".
ANZ's Workman said his team expected to see house prices to fall around 7 per cent across 2022 as the various headwinds made themselves felt.
"We'd still characterise this as a soft landing, given the exceptionally high starting point," he said.
"Robust household incomes (supported by the very tight labour market) suggest there are limits to how large the "correction" is likely to be."
Meanwhile, red hot consumer price inflation will likely mean little respite from interest rate hikes for several months yet.
For many New Zealanders, the extent of the falls may matter less than the direction of travel for the market.
Sentiment is a powerful influencer of economic behaviour and how kiwis react to falling house prices is something we haven't seen for several years.
How they react to falling house prices in combination with rapidly rising consumer prices is something we haven't seen in decades.
