The real estate industry in the Bay of Plenty is increasingly a seller's market with December recording a record low level of houses coming onto the market.

Bay of Plenty saw a new low of 31 weeks inventory in December 2014, according to market analysis by Real Estate NZ. The long term average for the BOP is 52 weeks.

Property asking prices for December 2014 compared to prior month.

Inventory is a theoretical measure of the number of weeks it would take to sell all unsold housing stock on the market at a given point in time.

The long-term national average is 36 weeks, however in December inventory fell to just 24.5 weeks of stock, with 15 out of 19 regions experiencing falls in available property levels.

Auckland drove the fall, registering an all-time low of 10.8 weeks of stock in December - a 21 per cent fall on November, and a 13 per cent drop on the same month in 2013.

'In total we now have just 37,537 homes for sale in New Zealand, which is the lowest since September 2013.”

The Bay of Plenty is also doing well on new listings with 707 for the month, an increase of 4.4 per cent on December 2013.

The percentage was only beaten by the Central North Island district at 7.5 per cent over December 2013, Hawkes Bay at an 11.8 per cent increase and Taranaki with a 15.6 per cent increase.

NZ inventory of listings for December 2014 (long term average).

Overall December was a quiet month for new listings with just 8,283 new homes coming on the market across the country - 39 per cent down on November though up by 3.4 per cent on the same month in 2013.

The total of number of homes that were listed for sale in 2014 was 128,049, which was 2.8 per cent down on 2013.

Brendon adds: 'The number of new listings tends to remain low through January, however we do expect to see a significant lift of homes coming on to the market in February and March this year, which will help to ease the current low levels of inventory that we are experiencing.”

The national average asking price in December was $480,815, slightly down on November and a fall of 3.9 per cent. It was, however, still seven per cent up on the same time a year ago.

In the Bay of Plenty the average asking price of $436,436 is 0.5 per cent down on the December 2013 average. Meanwhile in Auckland, the average asking price of $731,083 is only marginally below the all-time record of $731,588 set in November.

December average asking prices in Wellington and Canterbury were $462,511 and $450,919 respectively.

New property listings for December 2014 compared to December 2013.