First-home buyers still absent: Survey

A net 77% of agents are seeing fewer of them in the market.

Chief economist Tony Alexander said: “This wholesale withdrawal of a class of buyers who earlier this year accounted for near 24% of dwelling sales helps explain why the REINZ sales data for November released last Thursday showed sales to all parties down 6.6% from November 2012.”

The survey found 15.3% of sales are now to first-home buyers, down from 23.6% in March.

A net 16% of agents feel that it is now a buyer’s market and just a net 12.5% now feel prices are rising compared with 22.8% last month and 51.2% in September.