There is a great divide in people's house price expectations between those who live in Auckland and those who live elsewhere.
ASB's latest Housing Confidence Survey show that a majority of people everywhere except Auckland think it is a good time to buy a house.
Compared to the rest of the country, Aucklanders have a pessimistic outlook on the housing market with a net 16% thinking it's a bad time to buy a house in spite of the net 39% of Aucklanders who think house prices in the region will keep increasing.
Housing confidence was highest in North Island areas excluding Auckland, where a net 61% of survey respondents think house prices will increase.
Price expectations were lowest in Canterbury where a net 37% of people thought prices would increase.
"Influenced by higher Auckland house prices, the spill-over effect from Auckland property prices in earlier quarters and due to still declining interest rates, we expect the nationwide average house price to increase around 5-6% over 2016," ASB chief economist Nick Tuffley said.
"We expect the Reserve Bank to cut the OCR by an additional 50 basis points over 2016," he said.
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