Housing market activity has picked up pace with record high prices throughout the country.
Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
The Real Estate Institute's national median price rose a seasonally adjusted 2 percent in March to a new record of $546,000, up 10 percent on February.
Eight of 12 regions hit new record high median sale prices: Auckland, Northland, Waikato/Bay of Plenty, Hawke's Bay, Manawatu, Taranaki, Canterbury/Westland and Otago.
Institute chief executive Bindi Norwell said March reflected the seasonal peak for the year so far with the largest number of homes sold and the largest month-on-month increase in the median price.
March is usually busiest month for real estate transactions across New Zealand.
More properties priced at the higher end of the market were sold last month, which Ms Norwell said reflected tougher measures on lending.
"We're hearing anecdotal evidence in the market that banks are still being quite selective about who they are giving money to, so this is impacting some of the first home buyers and obviously investors as well," she said.
The number of sales, at 8504, was higher than February, reflecting the usual seasonal pick-up after summer.
Supply was still weak throughout the country and price pressures persist.
"We still have population growth, positive net migration, so until we have more properties being built, that will continue to put pressure on the median house prices," she said.
Michael Gordon, the acting chief economist at Westpac, said some of the heat had come out of the market because of tougher lending measures and rising mortgage rates.
"We've seen the previous hot spots, particularly Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga prices have really slowed down and more or less flattened out since about last August.
"Still some price increases coming through in places like Wellington and some of the smaller regions, but it's not at the same pace as it was before."
Mr Gordon said rising interest rates may put a further dampener on house price growth in the months ahead.
