KEY POINTS:
New Zealand house prices are still holding up better than most of the rest of the world's and we are ranked eighth out of 20 countries for our annual residential price increase.
Britain's Economist magazine used figures from our Quotable Value - widely acknowledged to be the most authoritative set of house price data - to show how well off homeowners here are, despite news of the downturn.
Most of the rest of the world is suffering from the effects of the global credit crunch, the magazine found.
While the Real Estate Institute and various agencies bemoan monthly price drops and tumbling sales volumes, the magazine found we are still relatively well off on its international scale.
Our rate of house price growth in the last year put us behind Singapore (29.8 per cent annual house price rise), Hong Kong (28.2 per cent), Australia (13.8 per cent), Sweden (11.3 per cent), China (10.7 per cent), Belgium (7.5 per cent) and South Africa (6.8 per cent). NZ's figure was 6.5 per cent.
Countries ranked behind us were Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and the few countries to have actually suffered annual house price falls in the latest data: Japan (0.7 per cent); Britain (1.0 per cent); Germany (4.7 per cent); Ireland (8.9 per cent) and the US (8.9 per cent).
The Economist said its roundup of the data suggested any "crash" was far from universal.
However, the magazine warned that soon, it expected far more countries to feature negative price growth.
"It is a fairly safe bet that the data will look less reassuring in six months' time," it said.
New Zealand is also in the top list of house price increases from 1997 to 2008.
The highest 11-year house rises were in South Africa (401 per cent), Britain and Ireland (both 220 per cent), Australia (174 per cent), France (151 per cent), Belgium (147 per cent), US top-10 cities (138 per cent) and New Zealand (125 per cent).
Worst-performers in those 11 years were Hong Kong (23 per cent) and Japan (33 per cent).
New Zealand was singled out for special mention as a "vulnerable" market, as was Australia.
Both countries had benefited from higher commodity prices and had seen big increases in construction-related employment. Both countries' central banks had also responded by tightening monetary policy.
The Economist said that as long as people thought of their house as a vehicle for speculation rather than just accommodation, it was inevitable that prices would be volatile, prone to a boom-bust cycle.
Another global house price index out this week, from international property consultants Knight Frank put New Zealand in quite a different spot.
"Lithuania, Denmark and New Zealand have joined the group of countries where house prices are now falling quickly," the consultants said. The index showed the three countries suffered plummeting prices of 9 to 24 per cent in the last year.
Barfoot & Thompson sold just 502 properties last month, low compared to a monthly average of around 900, but Auckland's average sale price was $524,248, up 5.4 per cent on July.
