Property prices, sales fall in May

House sale volumes and prices are dropping, according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, which has just released its May sales figures.

The national median price fell $2250 from April to May when it was $430,000. Volumes were down 14.8 per cent from last May although they rose between April and May: 6572 houses were sold last month.

Helen O'Sullivan, REINZ chief executive, said the volume easing trend continued with all regions recording a decline in sales volumes in May compared to 12 months ago.

This was the second month in a row volumes had dropped, she said.

"We would normally expect an increase in sales in May compared to April, however, after taking seasonal factors into account the increase was just 1.6 per cent. This leads us to conclude that the drop in sales in April due to the combination of Easter and ANZAC Day has not created an offsetting increase in sales in May.

"The weakening trend is also showing up in the number of days to sell with five regions seeing an increase of a week or more in the number of days to sell between April and May," said O'Sullivan.

See the REINZ regional data breakdown here:

"At the national level the number of days to sell is about in line with the 10 year average, however, for a number of regions the result for May is noticeably higher than the 10 year average,"she said.

Read today's REINZ news release here: