Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Can you hear it. The chatter of real estate.It’s been a bit quiet all winter, the Auckland market dropped 2.4 per cent,  but now it’s starting to buzz just a bit. There are reports of busy open homes and houses going above CV.  Better weather, low interest rates and a pent up pressure will do that.New figures for the year to last month show the biggest house price rises were in Central Hawkes bay, up 16.7 per cent and Manawatu/Whanganui up 16.3 per cent. Nationally prices are up 2.72 per centThe biggest market is in the 750,00 to 1 million dollar band which makes up 44.5 per cent of the national market.Isn’t interesting that people are coming back to the market just as the worst business confidence figures are out.  But that just shows you the vagaries in emotion.But what really struck my eye was that Dunedin is the biggest mover in house prices amongst all our cities, up over 12 per cent in the year.Having just spent 9 days in Central Otago, reading the ODT I can tell you there’s a buzz about the whole regio