Statistics suggest Auckland and Canterbury to enter spring real estate market early

Auckland and Canterbury are looking at an early spring market. Photo / Doug Sherring

The Auckland and Canterbury property markets are enjoying an early spring surge, new statistics suggest.

From 8739 new listings on a propery website across the country in August, numbers show almost half of them were in the two regions.

"Spring appears to have come early for the Auckland and Canterbury regions," realestate.co.nz spokeswoman Vanessa Taylor said.

"Canterbury has been an active market for some months, but it seems that the Auckland region has now sprung back to life with a surge of new listings."

The figures come as OneRoof revealed yesterday the fastest-rising suburbs in the Auckland region.

Seven of the 10 Auckland suburbs with the highest jump in house values between April 1 and July 31 had median prices above $1 million, the OneRoof Property Report showed.

Yet it was the Auckland region's cheapest town or suburb, Wellsford, with a median price of $536,600, that proved the pick of the bunch as its home values jumped 3.4 per cent.

Taylor said Auckland registered a 6 per cent increase in August compared with the same time last year and Canterbury increased 7.2 per cent.

FOR MORE PROPERTY NEWS AND LISTINGS GO TO ONEROOF.CO.NZ

But the number of new listing nationally is static, rising only 0.1 per cent compared with August last year.

Statistics also call attention to a record high in asking prices for 11 regions and a record low of total stock numbers for nine regions.

Central Otago/Lakes District led the nation's increase in property asking prices with an average asking price of $1,019,094.

"This is the first region to ever reach the one-million-dollar asking price milestone in the 11 years of data collection history on realestate.co.nz," Taylor said.

"Whether Central Otago-Lakes continues to outstrip Auckland as the most expensive region in terms of asking prices remains to be seen."

First-home buyers faced the brunt of the stock numbers slowdown,with an all-time low registered in the number of homes since recording began in 2007.

The stock level of houses in August was 21,207, down 1.6 per cent on the same time last year.

"While this seems on the face of it a modest decline, for the regions with all-time stock lows there's not a lot of options and homes are being snapped up," Taylor said.