House sales have slowed again as buyers continue to have the power in the market, Cotality says.It has now recorded seven consecutive months in which fewer homes sold than the year before. Sales were down 6.4 percent year-on-year in July to 6935.First-home buyers were responsible for 29 percent of those sales, a new record.Cotality chief economist Kelvin Davidson said the drop in sales reflected buyer caution."They know they've got the power, they don't have to buy the house in question, they know there's probably one similar just down the road because listings are so high."There are 27,336 properties on the market, down from 27,602 last year but higher than the five-year average of 26,314."But sellers aren't needing to collapse either, because most people have actually kept their job. Most people with work and with houses and mortgages have kept their job."He said the level of turnover was higher than in 2022 or 2023 when it fell to 40-year lows of 60,000 or 65,000 a year."Through 2024 and 2025, it was pretty consistent growth. Last year we got back to about 90,000 sales, which is pretty close to average… It felt busier, not off the charts, but certainly busier."The current level of sales is not actually that bad in a long-run context. "The recent slowdown in activity means that the 12 -month running total has eased to 89,385, from December's mini-peak of 91,411. The slowdown was sharpest in the main centres.Davidson said the busiest segment of the market would be the cheaper end where first-home buyers were active."They're the active group at the moment. The lower half of the spectrum, those sorts of suburbs are trading pretty well … movers or relocating owner-occupiers are still fairly quiet."We're hearing anecdotally that your upper-end suburbs, your more expensive ones, where owner-occupiers tend to be more active, they're a little bit quieter."It's possible that someone who's trying to sell a house going to another owner-occupier, or likely to go to another owner-occupier, might just have to be a little bit more aware of subdued buyer demand and think about their price a bit more carefully."Cotality chief economist Kelvin Davidson.SUPPLIEDHe said it was hard to see a clear direction for the housing market from here."Farming's still doing pretty well. And we are seeing regions of the economy that are supported by farming actually going okay, in terms of property market trends … there is still a little bit of jobs growth out there."So it's not all doom and gloom, but then on the other side of the equation for the housing market, you've got mortgage rates sneaking higher now. You've still got an above-average unemployment rate, lots of economic uncertainty, lots of listings."There just seems to be a bit of a holding pattern."House values dropped 0.3 percent in July according to the Cotality Home Value Index, and Auckland and Wellington were particularly weak. Values were down 1 percent over three months and 0.7 percent over a year. Auckland had the biggest over a year, down 2.4 percent and Wellington was next at 2.1 percent. Over three months Auckland was down 1.4 percent and Wellington 2.3 percent.Davidson said more people were looking to insure against the risk of higher mortgage rates in future by taking longer-term fixes but that meant they faced an increase when they refixed.Sign up for Money with Susan Edmunds, a weekly newsletter covering all the things that affect how we make, spend and invest money.