Only 100 homes sold across the Southland region last month, the lowest August volume since records began.

The latest stats from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, published this morning, show there were just 72 residential sales in Invercargill, 16 in Gore and 12 in Southland District.

REINZ boss Jen Baird says that's down to the Covid-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown, fewer listings generally, and fewer investors due to new legislation and talk of increasing interest rates.

"The arrival of spring and easing of alert level restrictions will likely result in an increase in market activity over the coming months."

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The region did, however, have an 8.6% increase on last August's median house prices, reaching $405,000.

Gore District ($375,000), Invercargill City ($421,000), and Southland District ($425,000) also had annual increases in their median house prices.

The level of stock in Southland is lower than that of August 2020, down 26.3%, influenced by new listings being down 37.9%.

The percentage of properties that sold by auction, rather than direct sales, has grown substantially, from 1.6% last August to 9% this August.

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But these figures will all be skewed by the low number of sales.

Nationally, the picture is the same, with the fewest number of residential properties sold for an August month since 2014. Volume decreased by 26.5% compared to last August, from 7,828 to 5,753.

Median prices for residential property across New Zealand increased by 25.5% from $677,400 in August 2020 to a record $850,000 in August 2021.