Australia's central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point for an unprecedented third straight month.

Auckland is driving the rise in house selling price expectations, while the rest of the country lags behind.

Building consents were up 11 per cent in October.

House hunters are now competing in a shallow listings pool, forcing more of them to attend auctions.

Land under Auckland's 258-unit Beaumont Quarter apartment complex is about to be sold for about $47 million.

A grey, wet Sunday and high prices weren't enough to deter buyers and browsers from the revitalised housing market.

Hanover investors' $500 million is tied up in a vast spread of partly built luxury housing estates and resorts - one still a hole in the ground.

House prices continued their upward momentum last month.

A shortage of homes for sale has pushed Auckland's residential property values higher than a year earlier, QV figures show.