Earthquake refugees boosted surrounding residential property markets.

The latest Statistics New Zealand research shows the number of residential buildings issued with consent in January rose, but only by less than 1%, if apartment consents aren’t counted.

If “volatile” apartments are counted, the grim statistics state that the total number of consents issued fell by 2.8%, with 1000 new homes and 42 apartments granted consent.

In December, the number of consents issued fell by 3.9%.

House prices continued to rise last month according to the latest Real Estate Institute of New Zealand sales figures, with prices reaching highs above those from the November 2007 peak in some regions.

Last month house prices rose by 0.2% according to the Real Estate Institute monthly housing price index, which calculates an average price based on the stratification technique which doesn’t include the extreme highs and lows of property prices each month.

The number of new houses coming on to the market last month was lower than expected, with only 2% growth in November from the previous month according to the latest monthly report from listings website realestate.co.nz.

“The number of new listings coming onto the market rose slightly to 13,857, from the October total of 13,550,” realestate.co.nz chief executive Alistair Helm said.