Real estate listings in October have continued to grow on previous months but the traditional surge in new listings in the lead up to Christmas has failed to come about.

That is one observation made in the NZ Property Report, a monthly survey of market activity compiled by Realestate.co.nz, the country's most comprehensive property listing website. The latest issue, covering October, has been released today.

Alistair Helm, CEO of realestate.co.nz says, "We are seeing a certain confidence in the market through people searching on the site and also people listing their property, but the seasonal uplift in listings has not happened as it did in years gone by".

Figures from the report show listings are up only 7% to 13,550 compared to a 21% rise at the same time in 2008 and a 16% increase in 2007.

Price expectation is steady at $418,759 while inventory - the number of weeks it would take to sell the country's entire available stock based on average sale times - rose slightly again in October as sales volumes remained subdued.

Helm said the combination of little movement in price expectation, the number of listings, and inventory over recent months meant the market could be considered stable at present.

The full NZ Property Report can be found on Realestate.co.nz's Unconditional blog at: www.realestate.co.nz/blog.