House prices 'robust' as turnover falls

Confidence in the property market is still strong with the national average house price reaching a record.

The average price for a house was $329,829 for the quarter ending June, according to statistics released by Quotable Value.

The cost of buying a house continues to rise despite a cooling in the property market over the last five months. Price growth of 11.5 per cent over the last 12 months was down from the 12.4 per cent growth reported in May and down from 16.8 per cent growth reported in January.

"The rate of growth is steadily reducing but there's still a lot of confidence with high employment rates and wage growth. People are still going to buy houses," said Blue Hancock of QV valuations.

"It's still rolling along and there's a good balance of buyers and sellers."

The main centres have seen a slight drop in the growth rate, with Hamilton down to 19.2 per cent, Christchurch 11.3 per cent, Wellington 10.5 per cent and Auckland 6.7 per cent.

In the provincial centres, Whangarei, Gisborne, Invercargill and New Plymouth recorded decreases in the growth rate for the period ending June.

According to statistics from Massey University's real estate analysis unit, house sales of 27,312 at the end of the June quarter were down 4.2 per cent on the same period last year (28,522). But sales for May were reported at 9642, up on both April and May sales last year.

Massey University real estate researcher Graham Crews said sales volumes had recovered by the end of the quarter. He was loath to comment on predictions from some quarters the property market was due to suffer.

"I'm cautious about making predictions. House prices are showing a slowdown but that's about all I can really say. There's less speculation than there was but there's still some robust activity."

Mr Crews said that before 2001 there had never been more than 100,000 homes sold in a year but that mark had been surpassed every year since.

Total sales for the year were 100,249 - 3.7 per cent down on the previous year's sales of 104,115.

Southland remains the most affordable region, with Manawatu/Wanganui in the number two position followed by Otago.

Central Otago Lakes and Auckland remain the least affordable regions.