Auckland property prices hit six-month high

"The September average sales price was up more than $16,000 or 3.2% on that for August, and up $24,000 or 4.9% ahead of that for the same month last year," said Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson.

"This represents a significant price increase given that for the past four months the average price moved no more than $2,000 from $529,000 to $531,000."

Thompson said traditionally prices begin to rise at the start of spring - and that for Barfoot & Thompson spring started early this year.

He said the company, in anticipation that the hype around the Rugby World Cup might interfere with normal spring promotions, brought their marketing campaigns forward by one month.

"Certainly as a result of that a number of sellers actively sought to list earlier than they might have otherwise done."

Thompson said that in September the top end of the market was especially active, with six homes valued in excess of $2 million being sold and another 45 sold in the $1 million-plus bracket.

"The number of homes sold in excess of $1 million represented 17% of all our sales by value for the month, which is a far greater proportion of sales than normal.

"You have to go back to March (when the average selling price peaked for the year at $581,000) to find a higher average monthly selling price."

He said the majority of those high value homes were in the central city, eastern suburbs, Devonport and North Shore beachline.

However, while the average sales price was up, the number of sales remained in line with the past two months at 738.

"We continue to sell more homes on a monthly basis than we did last year, but sales numbers have remained in a tight band between 778 and 738 for the last three months."

New listings at 1263 were 5% up on last year, and for a second month in a row exceeded 1,200, but according to Thompson remained "tight."

"At the end of the month we had only 4798 homes on our books, 36 more homes that last month's number, which was our lowest on record for four years."