House sales in Auckland rebounded last month, but economists believe they are generally slowing.
The city’s biggest real estate agency, Barfoot & Thompson, sold 1109 houses in May, down 14 per cent compared with May last year, although it was a 37 per cent improvement on public holiday-affected April.
Westpac and ASB said there had been little let-up in the general weakening trend of house sales since last October.
Westpac’s analysis showed monthly sales were up 2 per cent after a 10 per cent correction in April.
“That’s a fairly lacklustre rebound, given our suspicion that the confluence of public holidays may have weighed on April activity by more than usual this year,” Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said.
Sales were now 21 per cent lower than last August’s peak in seasonally adjusted terms, he said.
Auckland’s soaring house prices appear to have plateaued.
Barfoot’s house prices were virtually static, with its average sales price easing 0.2 per cent from April to just under $703,000, Westpac said.
Annually, this was 9 per cent higher than a year ago.
The more volatile median sales price rose 2.8 per cent from April to $645,000.House sale rebound
