"It is down to hard graft - it certainly isn't easy out there. But it is good the number of sales and the median sale price have both come up."
The median sale price for December was $242,750 - the second-highest level in six months and above last year's average of $241,883.
Mr McDowell said these positive indicators, along with a good level of inquiry so far this year, left him cautiously optimistic, but he did not expect any quick fixes.
"The top sale price was $850,000 and there were a good number in the $300,000-plus range, which is good.
"But there are still a lot of sales in the lower price ranges - we are seeing houses going for $75,000 to $80,000."
He said these very low-priced properties were generally rental houses in less desirable areas where landlords struggled to get good tenants or were fed up with repairing damages and wanted out.
The December figures were particularly encouraging, however, because December was usually not a good month.
January, June and October had also been poor months in the past three years, and Mr McDowell said it would be interesting to see this month's figures.
"January has so far been quite busy - mainly low-priced properties. I am quietly confident it will build up a bit, but it won't be great."
He is expecting new listings to rise from now to the end of the month.
"Over Christmas, many people have time to make up their minds about what they are going to do, so we do get a lot of new listings in the new year."
This influx of new properties and the many deals being offered by lenders could make it a good time to buy for some people.
Looking at 2011 as a whole, he said, the first three quarters were not bad, but a very poor October finished the year badly. Only 53 sales took place during that month, and the median price dropped to $215,000.
During the year, the top median was $264,250 in January 2011 and the highest number of sales per month - 85 - occurred in March.
REINZ figures from 2000 to 2011 show sales volumes peaked in 2005 with 2081 unconditional purchases during the year - an average of 173 a month, as shown in the Residential House Sales graph.
The top sale price for the period was $281,000, recorded in January 2008.
As the Median House Sale Prices graph shows, monthly medians have continued to drop since then but are still well above values between $120,000 and $150,000 that were recorded in 2000-04.
