The Real Estate Institute is predicting a property market comeback within the next eight months, then a recovery period going into 2010.
This is in spite of the news from Quotable Value (QV) that property values fell by 7.4% during 2008 - the biggest fall for 10 years.
December figures just released by the Real Estate Institute also show monthly sales down by 1300 on the same month in 2007.
But the institute's national president, Mike Elford, says that the current downturn is in effect a correction of wrongly inflated property values in some parts of New Zealand, and that people are realising they buy and sell in a relative market.
QV says property values grew by 120% between 2002 and 2007,
and a correction was inevitable. It's unsure when the period of falling values will end but says the market is making a better recovery than expected.
