'Big rally' in real estate

Real estate in Central Otago and the Queenstown Lakes district has rallied in the past six weeks, at a time the market is usually slow.

"There's been a surprising number of sales during the last six weeks and that amount of buyer activity is very unusual for this time of year, " new Real Estate Institute of New Zealand Central Lakes district president Henry van der Velden said.

The sales will show up in the institute's June and July statistics and Mr van der Velden said agents throughout the district had commented on the high level of activity.

"Since Queen's Birthday weekend, especially, there's been a big rally in sales."

There were plenty of home buyers around, but vendors had to be realistic about the price of their property, he said.

The buyers included people wanting to invest in commercial and industrial property, seeking a better return on their money than the banks offered.

The Central Lakes real estate district includes Queenstown, Wanaka, Alexandra, Clyde, Cromwell, Roxburgh, and Ranfurly and the surrounding area.

Mr van der Velden said the Central Lakes district was fortunate to have had a "growth spurt" lasting almost seven years.

The market had dropped but the signs were positive for the future and Mr van der Velden believed things were starting to improve again.

Earlier this month, the BNZ home affordability survey for typical buyers rated Central Otago-Queenstown Lakes as the least affordable place in New Zealand to buy a median-priced house.

It said it took 76.3% of one median income to pay the mortgage on a median-priced house bought in May, up from 71.5% in April.

The real estate institute's May statistics showed the median price for a Central Otago-Queenstown Lakes home increased to $427,500 last month.

There were 84 houses sold during May.

Mr van der Velden said most of the buyers were from within Otago, Southland and Canterbury, with "a lot of internal movement, with people selling and buying on the same market".