SPRING MOMENTUM
Property is still a confidence game, and timing plays an outsized role. Historically, the spring selling season brings a rise in listings, viewings, and auction activity. Combine that with materially lower repayments, stabilised prices and an improving macro narrative, and you have the ingredients for increased turnover.
The pace and extent of this activity will depend on many interwoven factors: how quickly lenders pass on lower rates, whether employment confidence recovers, and whether consumer fatigue lifts as inflation eases.
But signs are building. Investors are reemerging, first-home buyers are watching affordability improve, and sellers – particularly those who sat out the last two years – are beginning to test the waters.
Kiwibank forecasts housing inflation of five to seven per cent in 2026, driven by a gradual return of demand. While that may seem modest, it represents a clear directional shift after years of stagnation. More importantly, it reflects renewed liquidity, with more buyers transacting at sustainable prices.
RESETTING EXPECTATIONS
To be clear, this is not a return to the speculative boom of years past. Both regulators and market participants are wary of inflating another housing bubble. But a functioning, liquid property market, with active buyers, willing sellers, and enough supply, is not a speculative excess. It’ s a critical mechanism of economic health.
As the mortgage clock resets, households will have to reframe their expectations. Capital gains may be modest, but lower repayments, improved serviceability, and greater mobility can unlock a different kind of value, based on opportunity, not urgency.
The next phase of the market requires a new narrative. One that acknowledges price stability, celebrates improved affordability, and encourages long-term thinking.
Because while falling mortgage rates alone won’ t lift the economy, they are the necessary trigger for change. And in conjunction with stabilising costs, rising business confidence and a public increasingly eager for action, they are likely to push residential activity into a higher gear over the coming months.
Now the mortgage clock has been reset, spring will show us who’ s ready to move.
RAY WHITE NOW NEW ZEALAND | 23