WELLINGTON: New Zealand house prices rose to a record high in September, while the number of houses sold increased on the previous month, the Real Estate Institute of NZ (REINZ) said on Monday.
The REINZ's house price index rose 0.8 percent from August, to be 9.8 percent higher than the same month last year. The number of houses sold was up 2.6 percent on the month before.
The housing market has picked up since early last year, particularly in Auckland, the country's biggest city, and earthquake-damaged Christchurch, where a shortage of houses in both the major cities has been seen as bolstering prices.
Limits on how much retail banks can lend to low deposit house borrowers were imposed this month by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) to try to cool the rise in house prices.
The central bank has said it expects to start raising interest rates sometime next year, with the state of the housing market a key factor in the timing and scope of such rises.
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