An economist is sceptical house price inflation will abate any time soon, despite the Reserve Bank's introduction of restrictions on lending to people with small deposits.
However, the move does seem to be putting off first home-buyers.
The BNZ Real Estate Institute survey for September asked 420 real estate agents about the state of the residential housing market.
The results show a collapse in the number of first home buyers in the market, attributed to new lending rules imposed by the Reserve Bank.
The stricter rules mean no more than 10% of a bank's mortgage lending can be to people with deposits of less than 20%.
Forty-one percent of agents surveyed said they were seeing fewer first home buyers, compared with 24% who saw more first home buyers in August. The result was the weakest in this area since the survey began in 2011.
However, the institute said the market had a strong start to spring with 6720 sales in September, up 18.9% compared with the same month last year.
It said sales were ahead of what would normally be expected for this time of year, and September was the last month before lending restrictions came into effect.
As well, its house price index on a national basis was 9.8% higher in September than in the same month last year.
The indexes in Auckland and Christchurch - the two areas of worry for the central bank - climbed to 17.5% and 11.4% respectively.
BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander said he believed the actual price impact of the lending restrictions would be relatively subdued.
"I'm strongly of the opinion that prices will keep rising relatively firmly. The stack of demand factors here that has built up in recent years is simply too great," Mr Alexander said.
That included at least four years worth of frustrated investors who were looking to catch up on buying they did not do from 2008-11, and the same applied to first-home purchasers who held off buying because they thought prices were going to fall.
As well, net migration inflows for New Zealand were above average and moving to possibly more than twice average levels, he said.
"We've still got relatively low levels of interest rates out there, you've got very high awareness of what I've been talking about for five years, of a shortage of property in Auckland in particular and, of course, unfortunately down in Christchurch, and that awareness is going to keep a lot of people looking for opportunities."
Mr Alexander said he had no doubt many people were hoping there would be a weakness in the market at the moment, so they could jump in and make what they believed to be a "canny" purchase.
