Annual house price growth drops - a little bit

The growth rate decreased from the 10.4% reported in September. The average New Zealand sale price was $345,007 for this period.

"This is the first month that the annual growth has dropped to below 10% since QV started reporting changes in residential property market on a monthly basis in February 2005. The last time QV reported the annual growth in single digits was in the Quarterly House Price Index of June 2002," said QV spokesperson Blue Hancock.

"Although increases in property values have dropped below 10%, they remain positive with the national average sale price $33,448 above last year. However, the demand that has pushed prices up over the past four years is definitely slowing," Hancock said.

All the main cities recorded growth rates beneath 10% with Hamilton at 9.9%, Wellington 9.8%, Christchurch 9.5%, Auckland 6.5%, and Dunedin 4.1%. Most of the provincial cities showed consistent growth rates to last month with Rotorua’s growth at 21.1%, Gisborne 18.9%, Palmerston North 15.1%, and Hastings 4.1% and Queenstown 1.3%.

TO READ ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE MAIN URBAN AREAS CLICK HERE