National house sale listings drop 24.8pc annually

Property listings volumes have fallen nationally by nearly 25 per cent, with Auckland the only exception.

New data out this morning from realestate.co.nz showed low levels of housing stock in many regions. There were 21,462 houses for sale across New Zealand, down 24.8 per cent from the previous year when one day in late August was compared to the previous year.

Brendon Skipper, chief executive of realestate.co.nz which is the first to release trends each month, said there had been a gradual decline which was over and above the usual mid-winter seasonal lull.

He cited the Coromandel region which had only 141 new listings in the last month.

Auckland was the region throughout New Zealand where housing stock numbers are up compared to the same time last year, he said.

Kim Mundy, ASB economist, said while the housing market remained tight, inventory levels were beginning to rise.

"This is particularly evident in Auckland, where inventory levels have been lifting for the past 4 months. Weeks of inventory have also lifted in some of New Zealand's more recent hot spots including the Bay of Plenty, Hawke's Bay and Waikato. However, in the scheme of things inventory levels remain very low and as a result, this will continue to support prices," Mundy said.

WATCH: Making sense of property data

New national house value data will be out from Quotable Value and Auckland biggest agency, Barfoot & Thompson, in the next few days, followed by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand statistics on sale prices and volumes.