A surge of property listings has pushed the stock of unsold homes to its highest level in two and a half years.
Property website real estate.co.nz says new listings rose 7% last month and the backlog will take more than 53 weeks to clear at the current rate of sales.
The website listed almost 12,932 houses for sale in November.
However, chief executive Alistair Helm says sellers are becoming more confident as interest rates steady and tax changes take effect.
Mr Helm says there had been forecasts for a stagnant property market over summer, but the latest flood of listings may prevent these coming to fruition.
The expected selling price of newly-listed homes fell 0.5% to $417,660.
Meanwhile, housing confidence has slipped, but only slightly, according to the latest ASB Housing Confidence Survey.
Price expectations continued to fall over the last quarter, but a net 28% of respondents still say now is a good time to buy a house, compared to 29: in the previous quarter.
