May 2025 Market Update

The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) has released the May 2025 figures. To better understand the state of the market and where it might be heading, I created some simple graphs. Personally, I find it much easier to scan a graph to see not just how the numbers have changed since last month but also to identify any longer-term trends. It’s far more helpful for me than trying to make sense of numbers scribbled on a piece of paper. Hopefully, these visuals will be useful to you too.

72 Sales achieved in May 25, which is of course disappointing, but these numbers are always very erratic and do bounce around month to month but still would have liked and did expect to see bigger numbers than the 72 in May at the beginning of the year given falling interest rates, still some room to go.

The graph below shows which price ranges the 72 sales recorded for May came from. I notice the very top end, the million+ properties have been a little thin on the ground these last few months, but it does look like first home buyers are continuing to come into the market, which is exciting for them, and awesome to see. I don't believe it matters home many times we swap our homes over the years, that first one always means the most, still true for me.

Of course, we mustn't underestimate the importance of first home buyers either, they are the driving force in my opinion. Buying their first home allows the seller to buy their second home, they start the cycle.

A drop this month from the April 25, median sale price from $680,000 in April to $607,000 in May. I still consider a trend line would be almost level across the whole 2 years below, no losses, no gains. As a side note I intend to try to add a trend line to next month's report certainly to the graph below as I think that would be useful.

Perhaps the most common question I am asked would be how long they are taking to sell at the moment? I love finishing on a positive note, yes it took 5 days longer to sell this month than last month, but still 47 is no time at all really. I think most of us would think achieving a great sale in 47 days was a great outcome :)