First home dream is harder to achieve

The median Auckland house now costs almost nine times the annual earnings of the average New Zealander, up from six times a decade ago.

And while the market for more expensive properties is beginning to slow, strong turnover is still pushing up the prices of cheaper properties nationwide (under $350,000), keeping pressure on first home buyers.

The latest Real Estate Institute figures put the median Auckland house price in July at $363,500, almost double that of 10 years ago.

Annual earnings in that time have grown about 30 per cent - from $30,900 to about $41,000, according to Statistics New Zealand.

Professor Bob Hargreaves, head of property studies at Massey University, said New Zealand was losing ground internationally in the housing affordability stakes.

"When you look at the relationship between people's income and the amount they need to get into a house, New Zealand is fairly well up there in terms of those kinds of ratios now."

He said New Zealand started to fall backwards in home ownership when it was left to market forces.

"If you leave it to the market to determine, what tends to happen is the lending institutions lend to clients who are the best risk, I guess, so it's the people at the margin that miss out."

ASB chief economist Anthony Byett said Auckland's property market was mirroring nationwide trends and he expected it to weaken between now and next winter.

He said the demand nationwide for houses below about $350,000 was stronger than for more expensive properties. However, the cheaper houses would also follow the national trend and prices would flatten.