Real estate group Harcourts says it appears to have recorded a rise of around 35 percent in written nationwide sales in May compared to a year earlier.
Harcourts New Zealand chief executive Bryan Thomson said the indicative May figures reflected the current sound market and the abysmal market a year ago in many locations.
The May figures were a continuation of real estate market trends seen for most of 2009, Mr Thomson said.
The data from Harcourts follows upbeat figures for the Auckland market yesterday from Barfoot & Thompson, which said it had its best month's trading in more than two years in May.
But also yesterday, Westpac economists sounded a note of caution, saying the pick-up in the housing market was unlikely to last. They said prices would start falling again soon following sharp rises in longer term mortgage rates.
Today Harcourts' Mr Thomson said the stand-out part of the country for his group was the area including Waikato, Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty and parts of the Central Plateau and East Coast.
In that area the volume of sales appeared to have been more than 70 percent up on the same month last year.
At the other end of the scale, the volume of sales in the South Island provincial area was only around 10 percent up on May 2008.
That showed the relative stability of those markets compared to regions with bigger metropolitan centres, Mr Thomson said.
He was concerned that the number of properties listed for sale during the past few months continued to be below the norm.
While listings typically started to ease at this time of year, the number of properties coming on to the market was even lower than expected.
When combined with the increase in sales the low number of listings was making it difficult for buyers, he said. "I can only assume that some people are concerned about the price they may receive for their property and are therefore reluctant to list it at this time," he said.
"... however with the abundance of buyers in the market there is actually considerable competition for good properties and some excellent prices are being achieved around the country."
NZPA