Rotorua house sales are down and prices remain flat, new figures reveal.
Latest Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) figures show the number of houses sold in Rotorua in June was down from the same time last year, dropping from 66 to 53.
Meanwhile, the local median house price dropped $2500 year-on-year to $275,000.
Manager of Bayleys Rotorua Beth Millard said the local property market was lagging behind the rest of the country.
"The market has softened all over the country, and because Rotorua doesn't experience the real peaks, we lag behind other markets. I don't think we can ever compare ourselves to what's happening in Auckland."
The Reserve Bank's home loan restrictions were finally being felt locally, she said.
"It's taken a while for that to kick in."
The number of houses sold nationally last month fell 6.3 per cent compared with the same time last year, with the number of sales below $400,000 falling 17.3 per cent - an expected outcome of the Reserve Bank's home loan restrictions.
June's national median price rose $33,250 from the previous June to $427,250, but dipped by $2750 from May.
REINZ chief executive Helen O'Sullivan said it was now taking five days longer to sell a property than it did 12 months ago.
"Volumes continued to trend down in June, as they have done for the past several months.
"We are starting to see a number of regions record annual falls in the number of sales at around 20 per cent, with only modest increases in those regions where sales numbers are rising."
House price inflation in Auckland, Canterbury and Westland continued to dwarf the rest of the country.
However, regional New Zealand had experienced little change in the median price in the last seven years.
"Eight regions, representing over 43 per cent of the New Zealand real estate market, saw their median price increase by less than the change in the Consumer Price Index over the same period," Ms O'Sullivan said.
The Reserve Bank last month lifted official interest rates from 3 per cent to 3.25 per cent, forecasting a rate of 5 per cent by 2016.