Property

Queenstown Lakes house values are second only to the cooling Auckland market, the pair's average prices for 2015 up about 13% or more at $776,671 and $933,264 respectively.

None of Dunedin's houses will pass a rental warrant of fitness if the standards used during a recent trial of scheme are applied.

The Government's failure to ''get a grip'' on electricity prices and the property market resulted in the Reserve Bank again lifting interest rates, Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said yesterday.

House prices are being picked to continue to rise for the year and flagging sales numbers get a boost, before hitting a ''pervasive slowdown'' in 2015, according to Westpac economist Dominick Stephens.

From the outside, the jobs of golf professional at the home of the Ryder Cup and property manager in Dunedin might not appear to have much in common.

Despite the worst of the economic recession being over for two years, mortgagee sales are trending higher again, particularly in provincial and rural areas.

Mosgiel buyers seeking sections to build on appear to have made their move, with locals accounting for the majority of more than $5 million in sales at the HeathField subdivision.

Confidence in the Wakatipu's real estate sector as a lifestyle and holiday home destination will be tested when Bayleys Queenstown auctions 20 homes, apartments and bare section plots in "The Big Call" on May 3.

A two-bedroom cottage on a 637sq m section, a stone's throw from Lake Wanaka, sold for $1.1 million at auction at the weekend, well above its rateable value of $880,000.

Strong sales volume growth is continuing in the rural property sector, figures released by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand show.