Listings hit 11-month high in Auckland

Last month, there were 1,714 new listings for Barfoot & Thompson, the city's largest real estate firm, taking the total number of homes on the firm's books to 6,247, the highest level since March last year.

Auckland house prices rose 3.2% to $521,323 last month from January and were up 1.7% from the same month in 2009. The historically high price for the month of February also bucked the trend of the past couple of years, which has seen the average February price between $10,000 and $20,000 below the average for the previous year.

"While a seasonal uplift was expected [in February] as people returned from the summer break, an average February price close to that for the average of the previous year (2009 yearly average: $522,297) has never occured previously," said managing director Peter Thompson.

The firm boosted the number of sales 7.4% to 626 from January, and it was up 12% from February 2009. Still, that leaves 544 properties that were either sold by another real estate agency or taken off the market.