The housing market continues to buck trends

The latest Real Estate Institute data shows median house prices across New Zealand increased by 19.3 per cent year-on-year to a record 749-thousand dollars in December.

OneRoof editor Owen Vaughan says now is supposed to be the dead period in the market - as summer is usually when people take a break from buying and selling houses.

He says buyer demand is such that people are hitting any open homes that are there, and sellers have bought forward their campaigns to take advantage of the surge.