Poor weather, political uncertainty and the financial crisis are being blamed for the continual downturn in property values throughout New Zealand.
The arrival of spring usually brought an upsurge in the number of house sales, but property values had declined a further 1% in the past month, and were now 6.8% lower than they were a year earlier, QV Valuations spokesman Blue Hancock said.
The percentages are calculated by comparing prices in the three months ending October 2008 with the corresponding period a year earlier.
Mr Hancock said some buyers and sellers might have delayed acting because of apparent uncertainty in the market arising from the financial crisis and the weekend's election.
However, Dunedin property values improved, and were 8.2% lower than they were a year ago, compared with 8.5% last month.
The average sale price was $257,950.
"We can expect prices to continue the downward trend of previous months in the short term, followed with a sustained period of little or no growth that could last for many months, or even years," QV Dunedin manager David Paterson said.
