8 Nov 2017

Property market picking up - Trade Me

8:36 pm on 8 November 2017

The latest Trade Me figures shows the country's property market is picking up again.

The country's lacklustre property market could be on the move again, with latest Trade Me figures showing business is picking up.

The property market has been cooling for most of year, led by Auckland.

But the October Trade Me Property Price Index shows there were 30 percent more properties listed in October than in September - and some regions have asking prices significantly higher than a year ago.

The index is different to some other property measures because it looks at asking prices and the number of listings rather than final sales.

Trade Me property manager Nigel Jeffries said there was normally an increase in activity once spring arrived but that was delayed a little by the election this year.

Nationwide asking prices rose 2.7 percent from September to October to $623,700.

That comes after Quotable Value figures last month showed that sales prices had risen 3.9 percent for the year to October, the slowest increase in five years.

The Trade Me index showed the biggest increases on last year were in Hawke's Bay, where average asking prices have rise 17.1 percent to $487,300, Manawatu/ Wanganui (13.1 percent to $309,700) and Marlborough (12.5 percent to $534,000).

The smallest increase were West Coast and Canterbury where asking prices were virtually unchanged.

Get the RNZ app

for ad-free news and current affairs