New house listings plunge 34pc in April

New house listings fell 34 per cent in April, but asking prices have remained stable says research from real estate website realestate.co.nz.

It says the total number of new listings last month was 10,453, a fall of 21 per cent on March and a 34 per cent fall on April last year.

Realestate.co.nz chief executive Alistair Helm said the property market had been "a buyer's market for the last 18 months" but there had now been a significant drop in new listings.

"The reduced inventory will start to favour sellers, and could result in upward pressure on prices in coming months," he said.

No part of the country escaped the drop in new house listings. Northland had the biggest fall with a reduction of 56 per cent on April 2008, while Nelson experienced the smallest, down 5 per cent.

There was little change in the prices house sellers were asking for though, with the mean asking prices up to $405,936 in April compared to $405,710 in March.

This April 2008 price is down just 1.7 per cent from the same month last year.

Realestate.co.nz is using a new method of calculating prices, known as the "truncated mean". It says this method, adopted after consultation with economists, provides a more accurate price measure, decreasing the distortion that can be caused by "the influence of extreme values".

See the full report here.