KEY POINTS:
Auckland Central is the area most in demand for house hunters using the internet.
Alistair Helm, chief executive of realestate.co.nz which is half-owned by the Real Estate Institute, has mapped the 10 most browsed areas based on the sheer volume of hits on the house-selling website he runs.
Popularity was gauged according to the number of web viewings and compared with the total number of properties listed in any one area. Auckland Central, with a median house price of $288,000, has the highest number of listings as well as internet viewers.
Mr Helm said there was some bias here - the sheer number of houses and people in the area meant the area was inherently popular.
"The suburb covers a wide variety of central business district listings with a heavy focus on apartments," he said.
The most expensive place listed in the area was a $4.5 million Princes Wharf penthouse and the cheapest was a $57,000 studio apartment in Unilodge.
Remuera, with a $714,000 median, was second most popular and Mt Eden with a $565,000 median came in third.
"There are 1619 individual suburbs featured on the website and the data is compiled over the three months up to October," he said.
He was not surprised to find the favourite was Central Auckland but was more surprised to find Palmerston North and Oamaru keeping company with Queenstown and ahead of Epsom.
Mr Helm then compiled a second table of the most unpopular areas and found Aotea in the South Waikato district was most shunned by internet house hunters, followed by Manakau, north of Otaki, the Far North's Kaeo and Kaiwaka, Athenree in the Western Bay of Plenty, Waipapa in the Hurunui district and Waihi.
These areas were unpopular because they were rural with few houses and too small to offer a lot of employment options which might draw piles of house hunters, Mr Helm said.
They were also too remote to make them an attractive area for commuters.
The website yesterday had 51,716 houses for sale nationally and 6027 houses for rent.
