House listings rise in Chch | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

Christchurch is bucking the national trend with a steady flow of new house listings, but sales remain sluggish, according to a report from realestate.co.nz.

The site's monthly figures show the New Zealand property market continues to be in a "dormant" phase.

Fewer new listings are coming on to the market, and sales are subdued, the report says.

While Christchurch joins the rest of the country in low sales, listings are on the rise, said chief executive Alistair Helm.

"Canterbury is not as badly placed as other parts of the country - there are lots of good opportunities for buyers.

"The market is responding traditionally in the Canterbury area but the rate of sale is slow," he said.

January saw 1533 new listings in the Canterbury region, up 15% from the 1331 listed in December.

The same month saw just over 10,000 new listings coming onto the market throughout the country; the first time in four years that the January figure has been lower than December.

While the sales figures show year-on-year growth, they are still lagging behind historical averages.

Total sales for 2009 were just 69,000 - up from the 2008 level of 56,000 but far from the mid-2000s levels of around 100,000.

Summer is traditionally one of the busiest times of year for real estate, as people seek to make life changes, including buying or selling their house, said Mr Helm.

There were a lot of people in the area looking for a new property.

And while this didn’t necessarily translate into sales, it wasn’t a bad thing, he said.

"It’s a balanced buyers’ and sellers’ market.

"No one’s got the upper hand."

He said the low sales figures throughout the country were a product of a "really depressed market in 2008".

Supporting this position of a sluggish property market is the measure of asking-price expectations, which changed little in Canterbury between December and January by moving from $354,942 to $355,026.

Nationally, prices fell from $412,319 in December to $404,040 in January. This was a sign of a market where sellers were asking realistic prices so that their property stands out in what is becoming a somewhat crowded market, says realestate.co.nz.