At 20, Stacey Knuth of Whanganui has achieved what few young Kiwis her age can still do - buy a house.
She bought a state house in Gonville, a suburb which according to September quarter housing figures has the third-cheapest housing in the country.
A far cry from Parnell or Ponsonby, a house in Gonville had a median sales price of $110,000.
And it's in close proximity to the country's cheapest suburb, Castlecliff, where houses this quarter went for a median $88,000.
But Gonville has another distinction. It tied with Wellington's Brooklyn for the quarter's highest jump in house sales, up 145 per cent on the same period last year, due in part to a clutch of state houses on the market.
Whanganui has become a bit of a poster child for declining provincial towns, but to Knuth, who is locally born and bred, Gonville is a great place to live.
"I've been living here for about two months now and it's really nice, it's a good little four-bedroom home... It's a good little neighbourhood, I've had no trouble.
"There's no houses in front of me and no houses out back so on a clear day you can see the mountain straight out the front and then out back you can see the sea."
While Gonville and Auckland are going strong, there are many parts of the country where the housing market is ailing.
House sales declined almost across the board, down nationally by 12 per cent in September,or 7.9 per cent for the quarter.
At the same time, prices generally increased, up 5 per cent nationally.
But they are largely being propped up by continued demand for housing in Auckland and Canterbury.
Outside these regions, the latest Fairfax Media-REINZ report paints a picture of fairly flat prices with a few exceptions.
There were pockets of strength such as Queenstown-Lakes District, up nearly 12 per cent in price, and Rangitīkei District, where median prices jumped 16.7 per cent to an affordable $140,000.
Contrast that with Taranaki's Stratford, where sales fell 18 per cent and prices slid nearly 14 per cent.
Or Southland, where sales dropped 6.3 per cent and prices tumbled 13 per cent.
The Real Estate Institute believes three factors were at play in the September quarter's housing market: winter, the election and in Auckland, the imminent release of the councils' new property valuations.
Now they are out of the way, the institute's chief executive Helen O'Sullivan says it will be interesting to see where the housing market is going.
Interest rates are still low, and the economy is still positive. But the jobs are still largely in Auckland, where a chronic lack of house listings and rising migration still conspire against the buyer.
Source: Stuff.co.nz
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