New Zealand Home Prices Down Slightly From May to June

WELLINGTON, New Zealand--New Zealand home prices declined in June from May, data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand showed Wednesday.

REINZ said the national median home price in May was NZ$529,000 (US$384,000), 1.1% lower than in May. The figure is up 5.8% from June 2016.

The number of days it took to sell a house, a gauge of underlying demand, deteriorated. The median number of days to sell was 36, five days longer than in June 2016.

The REINZ Monthly Housing Index, which uses all sales by REINZ members rather than just a median price, was up 2.8% on year and down 0.3% on month.

REINZ said New Zealand's property market is showing "all the signs" of a two-tier market. Auckland's median price increased to NZ$850,500 from NZ$830,000 in June 2016, and the national median excluding Auckland rose to NZ$431,000 from NZ$387,000.

The housing market is one of the major challenges analysts see for New Zealand's economy, especially in Auckland, the commercial capital, where chronic undersupply and high demand, fueled in part by high migration both from overseas and the country's regions, have pushed prices to record levels.

Write to Ben Collins at ben.collins@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 12, 2017 17:50 ET (21:50 GMT)