Not enough new listings: Realestate.co.nz

According to the website’s data, inventory - which is measured by the number of weeks it would theoretically take to sell all unsold housing stock on the market - fell to 28.7 weeks in November (seasonally adjusted); a 29% drop from the same month last year, and well below the long term average of 39 weeks.

The drop was most dramatic in Auckland, where inventory fell to 15.5 weeks, its lowest level since the website began collecting data.

Other areas with big drops in inventory were Northland, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Waikato, Central Lakes, Canterbury and Marlborough.

Paul McKenzie, marketing manager for realestate.co.nz, said new listings were not keeping pace with buyer demand.

"Numbers of new listings are traditionally up at this time of year, and November was no exception, with 13,571 new listings arriving on the market," he said. "However, as has been the case for much of this year, such low levels of inventory place the market firmly in sellers’ favour. This has been reflected once again in the average asking price this month, which has topped October’s record high to register a new high of $446,277."

The seasonally adjusted truncated mean asking price for listings on the website steadied, rising just 0.2% to high of $446,277 in November.

In the main centres, Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch all reported a fall in the asking price in November. Auckland fell 2.5% to $596,759, Wellington fell 4.2% to $431,259 and Canterbury fell 2% to $405,913.

In total 10 regions reported asking price increases, and five regions had rises of more than 5%.

The most significant rises were seen in the Central North Island, Northland, Manawatu/Wanganui and Southland with Central North Island showing the largest increases, up 6.9% to $369,390.

Of the nine regions witnessing asking price falls on a seasonally adjusted basis there was three that reported a falls of more than 5% with Gisborne falling by 14.4% to $250,866, Hawkes Bay falling by 10.3% to $321,454 and Wairarapa falling 7.3% to $254,194