Winter the time to list

Realestate.co.nz has released statistics that show the winter months in 2011 were the only time that year that the number of sales exceeded the number of listings. June had 8.3% of the year's sales but only 7.5% of the year's listings, compared to October, which had less than 8% of the year's sales but more than 9% of the year's new listings.

Alistair Helm, CEO of Realestate.co.nz, said this showed there was a good opportunity for vendors to put their homes on the market over the colder months.  

"The trend down in listings is more pronounced than the trend down in sales in winter. [It] is a lost opportunity for vendors as there is still as many people actively looking in the wintertime. Vendors who stick to traditional selling peaks in September and October and February and March will find they are working in a very crowded market. 

"Rather than going with the herd and listing in the spring and summer there are great opportunities outside of those months for vendors to cash in on an active property market. Yours could be one of the few houses on the market."

And he said with the heat on interest rates at present, the market was likely to be even more buoyant than last year, particularly in Auckland and Christchurch.

He said: "If this were coming from a real estate agent, people would probably think ‘oh you would say that'. But it's us, it doesn't matter to us [how many listings there are]. We just highlight what we see."