Housing market 'settled' - except in our two biggest cities

Auckland's housing market is soft and Wellington's is worse but the Real Estate Institute says the best way to describe activity at the moment is flat.

It said the national median sale price in June was $770,000, up 0.7 percent compared to last year but down 1.3 percent from the month before.

There were 5996 properties sold, which was down 2.9 percent year-on-year and 11 percent month-on-month.

The house price index, which smoothes out variation in median sales price caused by the types of properties being sold, was down 0.8 percent.

Chief executive Lizzy Ryley said the market was settled.

She said, out of the 35 June months since 1992, this June was 23rd for sales activity.

"It's relatively steady. Looking at what a lot of different sources are saying in the market, some sort of implying that things are trending south at a rate of knots, it's actually not. It's relatively stead. The economic forces are just balancing the market."

She said the South Island was still stronger than the North Island and Wellington was "really struggling".

Wellington's house price index was down 1.4 percent over one month, 4.5 percent over a year and still almost 30 percent below the peak.

"You could say Auckland is struggling but if you look at it compared to Wellington, it's not struggling as much."

Auckland's house price index was down 3 percent year-on-year.

Ryley said Auckland's drop in sales, down 5.6 percent on a year earlier, was a sign of buyer and seller caution. Auckland's turnover was down 13.3 percent month-on-month.

"We've got the election coming up and I think people are just going 'hang on a minute, I'll wait and see'. Listings and inventory are still reasonably strong. People are there, they're just on both sides being very cautious about what they agree to at this point in the economic cycle."

She said Christchurch's market was stronger. Canterbury prices were up 0.6 percent in a month and 4.1 percent in a year.

Ryley said any predictions that New Zealanders were likely to start to think less of property as a way to build wealth in future were likely to be wrong.

"Anything that has been systemic for such a long time, it's not going to shift that easily unless the election brings a radically different environment for New Zealand or context. But I don't think that will happen either."

Inventory increased year-on-year in 13 of the 15 regions tracked. Auckland and Wellington had experienced 29 consecutive months of year-on-year inventory growth.

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