Property

New Zealanders want safe backyards for their children and access to good schools - and will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for them.

Dunedin firm Keogh McCormack has expressed significant concerns surrounding the lack of regulations in the property management industry. It believes monies are at greater risk than most landlords and tenants perceive, as Sally Rae reports.

The fact Auckland has replaced the Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes districts as the least affordable region to buy a house is "a positive", a Central Otago Lakes real estate spokesman said.

New Zealand residential property in 2011 continued to claw back value, according to December sales figures released on Wednesday by Government valuer Quotable Value.

Median house prices in Otago have remained static in the past two years, but there are signs of life returning to the residential real estate market.

New Zealand homes are overvalued by 25 per cent and the country is one of nine under threat of a housing bubble burst, says the Economist.

Conditions are ripe for New Zealand house prices to show modest growth over the next 12 months as supply constraints that have lifted the Auckland market start to show up throughout the country, ASB says.

Asking prices for homes have hit a new high, particularly in Auckland, as sellers bet on the market staying strong.

Farm sales for the three months ended September have increased 56.7% on the corresponding time last year, figures released by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand show.