Bayleys manager Jonathan Sissons said sale prices were unexpectedly high and showed the popularity of solidly built homes in up-and-coming areas.
"They are solidly constructed, with rimu, matai and even kauri floorboards, thick joists and robust foundations.
"They can be easily added on to or decorated and in many cases they are on sizeable tracts of land, so there is subdivision potential."
The Government is reviewing state houses as it believes up to a third are in the wrong place and are the wrong size.
Bayleys Research senior analyst Ian Little tipped Orakei, Onehunga and Mt Roskill as the logical areas to see the next sell-off.
"The most likely scenario is that the Government will sell stock and construct new homes in Ranui, Swanson, Manurewa and Papatoetoe, where land costs are cheaper."
A similar scenario would also play out in areas such as Mangere and Glen Eden, which flanked the skyrocketing suburbs of Mangere Bridge and Titirangi.
The median price in Mangere Bridge has leapt from $465,000 in 2012 to $650,000 last year and is still climbing. Neighbouring Mangere has a high level of three-bedroom state homes on large sections. Housing New Zealand said there was a shortage of one and two-bedroom state houses on easy-care sections.
For each state house removed from Housing New Zealand stock, another has to be built. An 800sq m parcel of land with one house can be replaced by four homes - two state houses and two sold privately.
Little said the profit from sales of properties on valuable land could be used to "provide more suitable houses where demand was higher".
A spokesman for Finance Minister Bill English said Housing NZ was working on disposing houses that were no longer required and building new ones where they were needed.
