Horticulture appears to have been the winner during this period in Hawke's Bay, with some "solid sales of bare land deemed suitable for Horticulture".
In Hawke's Bay over the past three months there had been seven sales of horticultural land, compared with four sales for grazing land, and four for finishing land.
Nationwide dairy had been "very quiet" in most regions, with an easing in volumes of grazing apart from four regions. There had been a reduced scattering of forestry sales across the North Island, with arable sales "generally quiet".
Property Brokers Waipukurau rural real estate consultant Pat Portas said there had been some very good sales of horticulture land in the early part of winter.
"They've dried up a little bit of late and we're just waiting for that new lot of properties to come on to the market going into the spring."
This quietness over winter spread across the rural market, he said, with "people waiting for the spring to kick in".
"There is talk about a few farms coming on the market, we've got several smaller blocks that are coming up, when I say smaller blocks I mean less than 100 ha, and then we've got some larger blocks as well coming up of 300 to 400 ha."
Harcourts Waipukurau co-owner Heatha Edwards said there didn't seem to be any particular market genre that had stuck out as being specifically sought after by buyers.
"Every eight to 10 years we get our turn, we get a lovely big surge in the market with lots of activity," she said. "Its lovely that its buoyant, there's a lot of confidence in the market, interest rates are still delightfully low."
Nationally, the median price per hectare rose in the three months to July 2017 - to $27,158 from $26,492 in July 2016.
REINZ rural spokesman Brian Peacocke said the reduction in sales volumes for the three-month period ending July 2017 reflected the dormant winter period, with farmers focusing on the seasonal issues of lambing and calving.
"Of interest and clearly stimulated by the recently announced increase in the milk payout and the current strong beef prices, an air of confidence, or perhaps relief, is quietly growing within the rural sector," he said.
"However, in a number of areas throughout the country, that optimism has been tempered by recent persistent, heavy rainfall and extensive flooding, generating extremely difficult conditions for the wintering of cattle and calving of dairy cows in particular."
Things were also quieter on the lifestyle front - there were 471 fewer lifestyle property sales for the three months ended July 2017, than the 2088 sales in the same period last year.
For Hawke's Bay, the median price for lifestyle blocks in the three months was $406,375 - about $66,000 less than the same time last year.
