Queenstown Lakes and Invercargill house prices have both appreciated in the last 3-months, despite prices falling 1.8% nationally, according to the latest (Jun 2023) Quotable Value House Price Index.

However based on the last 6-months, Queenstown values have fallen just 0.3% while Invercargill values are down 2.8%.

Queenstown Lakes house prices now have an average value of $1,710,569 while Invercargill's average house value is $453,431.

Queenstown's IQ Owner Simon Green said that while they were seeing an overall slowing in activity across the market, there were distinct sectors within the Queenstown market and each performed quite differently.

He said that with lower volumes of sales, they always took what they read with a grain of salt, as limited sales in one sector could unduly impact the overall market figure.

Green said that while Queenstown markets may be going into a holding pattern for the next six to none months, he forecast things would go to another level once more and uninterrupted air capacity drove the proper return of buyers.

He said the pricing of new builds at the top of the market was already far above where it had been in the past, with some developments valued at over $20,000m2 because of building costs.

"..everything's going to get dragged up accordingly, because that stuff will sell, because there's just so few other options," Green said.

Hughie Brierley from Invercargill real estate firm Todd & Co, said they were selling slightly more properties, but for slightly less.

He said they were seeing a 7% increase in the number of Invercargill properties selling each month, with just a 5% drop in their median value.

Te Anau real estate company owner Don McFarlane from Ray White Te Anau, said sales values were holding extremely well with their annual rolling figures up 18.2% on last year.

McFarlane said that while sale volumes were down on last year, numbers in the last three to six months had increased.

Nationally house prices fell by 1.8% in the last 3-months with the biggest drops being in Dunedin and Napier (both -3.0%), Tauranga (-2.9%) and Marlborough (-2.5%).

New Zealand's three biggest cities also suffered depreciating house values with Auckland recording (-2.2%), Wellington (-2.0%) and Christchurch (-1.5%) in the same period.

Queenstown house values have all but held their value over the last 6-months, with a 3.2% decrease earlier this year being offset by a 2.9% jump in values in the latest June 30th quarter. 

Invercargill house values rose 0.2% in the latest quarter, a -3.1% drop earlier this years means they are still 2.8% lower than at the beginning of 2023 and 6.8% lower than at June 2022.