Auckland house sales and prices fell last month as the country's biggest city continued to enjoy a glut of properties on the block, realtor Barfoot & Thompson says.
The number of houses sold in Auckland fell 24 per cent to 721 and the median sale price slipped 1.2 per cent to $840,000 in December, Barfoot said in a statement. The median price was up 5 per cent from December 2015, while the volume of sales was down 9.4 per cent.
"While prices definitely eased there was certainly no suggestion that current prices are under any great downward pressure and normal sales numbers are being achieved," said managing director Peter Thompson.
The slowdown in Auckland's housing market came as Barfoot, the city's biggest realtor, had 3,270 properties on its books at the end of the month, up 35 per cent from a year earlier, and the biggest available stock at the end of the year for four years. Barfoot had 776 new listings in December, less than half than in November, though still up 2.5 per cent from a year earlier.
ASB Bank economist Kim Mundy said those rising inventory levels appear "to be taking some of the heat out of Auckland house price growth", though they're still near historical lows which should keep a floor on prices.