New Zealand House Prices Flat in May Vs. April

WELLINGTON, New Zealand--New Zealand home prices were flat in May from April, data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand showed Wednesday.

REINZ said the national median home price in May was NZ$540,000 (US$390,000), unchanged from April. The figure is up 6.7% from NZ$506,100 May 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 37, five days longer than in May 2016.

The REINZ Monthly Housing Index, which uses all sales by REINZ members rather than just a median price, was up 5% on year and down 0.4% on month.

The housing market is one of the major challenges analysts see for New Zealand's economy, especially in the commercial capital Auckland, 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

June 13, 2017 18:09 ET (22:09 GMT)