House buyers can continue to bide their time as the New Zealand housing market remains subdued, with price competition favouring buyers.Cotality's NZ Monthly Housing Chart Pack indicates sales activity was continuing to weaken and property values showing little sign of a broad-based recovery last month."It's not fully in favour of buyers, I mean, sellers don't have to capitulate. We haven't seen a huge rise in unemployment, so there's not really a lot of forced selling going on," Cotality NZ chief property economist Kelvin Davidson said."Buyers know they have quite a bit of choice, and so yeah, they do, on balance, have that power when it comes to pricing."Investor sentiment had also weakened, with purchasing by mortgaged multiple-property owners declining for a second consecutive quarter."You'd think things would be in favour of investors as well, but they are just a wee bit weary. And I think there's a few pressures there," Davidson said."Obviously, rents are fairly flat, operational costs have gone up, and the election is coming onto the radar too in terms of possible tax changes for property, so always a lot to keep an eye on."Sales fell 4 percent last month on the year earlier, which was the sixth consecutive monthly decline in transaction volumes.Sales activity over the first six months of the year was down 4.2 percent lower than the corresponding period in 2025."There's no obvious catalyst for a sharp turnaround at present," Davidson said."With listings still elevated and economic uncertainty lingering, we expect market conditions to remain relatively subdued through the second half of the year."Cotality NZ chief property economist Kelvin Davidson.SUPPLIEDHowever, he said first home buyers remained one of the most active buyer groups in the market, continuing a trend that had been evident for some time."First home buyers are certainly taking advantage now. They're running at record shares of the market at the moment. They're obviously doing more deals too."Market outlookDavidson said the outlook for the second half of 2026 remained relatively subdued."As a result, the second half of 2026 is likely to look similar to the first, with modest sales activity and generally flat property values across much of the country."He said the market had changed over the past three to four years."We have actually seen a big rise in the supply of housing. So we do have more physical dwellings than we used to have, and I think that's probably spilling over a little bit into the mindset as well."People are starting to think, well, you know what, we might always have a more responsive supply side of the market in the future, and so perhaps capital growth expectations are being pared back a little bit as well, and just the whole mindset around the housing market seems to be just shifting."Still, he said growth was likely to return at some point."But could it be lower in future than it has been in the past? Yeah, I think that's a strong possibility."