Why now could be your chance to move to a nicer house

If you have been thinking about moving to a bigger house or a nicer suburb, now could be the time to do it, new data suggests.

Cotality has released data that shows in some parts of the country, it has become cheaper to "trade up".

Chief property economist Kelvin Davidson looked at the typical difference in price between a three-bedroom and four-bedroom home.

He said the 10 largest trade-up premiums were all at least $290,000 but the difference had fallen 7 percent in Western Bay of Plenty and Auckland City, by 12 percent in Hastings and 9 percent in Queenstown-Lakes.

In the central Auckland suburbs, the gap in price between a median three-bedroom and median four-bedroom home has fallen from a peak of $700,874 in 2024 to $588,569.

In Wellington, the difference has dropped from a peak of $282,195 in 2021 to $241,372. Christchurch has fallen from $270,430 at its highest point to $266,317.

The smallest trade-up premiums were in Kawerau, Ōtorohanga, Waitomo, Waimate, Tararua and Clutha. The cheaper areas have seen their trade-up premium increase.

"Soft patches in the property market can sometimes be a good opportunity to trade up, even though a lot of households tend to withdraw when uncertainty is elevated," Davidson said.

"That can be because they're concerned about the price they might get for their current house but they potentially overlook the fact that the bigger property may have dropped even further."

He said if the premium had declined, it would mean less debt to raise or equity to fin.

"People need to consider other factors, of course, job uncertainty, possibly higher mortgage rates, these sorts of things. If you look at it purely from that trade-up gap, it's not a bad time to be thinking about that move... buying and selling in the same market can pay off."

He said people seemed to be shifting from one house to another less at the moment. "There are always movers relocating... just at the moment we're recording a market share of 25 percent, 26 percent for movers. Normally they're 28 percent, 29 percent. So they're there, but not as active as they normally are.

"We've heard a lot of stories about people pulling their head in a little bit."

He said sometimes bigger properties might still be falling in value while smaller ones lifted a bit. First-home buyers have been very active lately, and are sometimes looking for smaller homes.

It could also be a good time to trade up to a new build, he said. "There's been a big development pipeline and you might have to switch property type potentially because a lot of new builds have been townhouses but it's probably not a bad time to be looking at a new build because they are pretty abundant."

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