Active retirees move to the West Coast, while young first home buyers snap up homes in Christchurch.

Active retirees are moving to the West Coast, while young first-home buyers are snapping up homes in Christchurch, property experts report.
Figures from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) show the West Coast and Canterbury regions had a record number of house sales in April.
The West Coast saw 46 properties sold the strongest sales volumes for April in 15 years. In Canterbury there were 1076 properties sold, the busiest April for 14 years.
West Coast real estate agent Charlie Elley said there had been 12 months of outstanding sales.
Buller and Westport have seen outstanding house sales.
Records continue to be broken on the Coast with highest sales volumes, shortest time to sell, best achieved price, and best year-on-year values just some of the stats that are taking a hammering at the moment, he said.
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Interest levels continue to show no sign of dropping off, with inquiries being fielded from all over New Zealand.
Regardless of all this, the mean house price on the Coast remains at around half the national average, Elley said.
Houses were getting multiple offers, previously unheard of on the Coast, he said.
The market is slowing, but thats only because of a lack of stock.
We are getting a high level of interest from active retirees selling up in the main centres and moving to the Coast so they can have plenty of money left over to enjoy the lifestyle, because we still have among the lowest house prices in the country.
Canterbury had 354 properties, or 32.9 per cent, sold under the hammer last month, the highest percentage of auctions since records began.
The West Coast saw the biggest fall in a supply of houses for sale, from 96 in April last year to just 10 this April the lowest inventory seen in the West Coast since records began.
Timaru had record property price of $440,000 in April 2021.
The median house price on the West Coast rose 27.9 per cent to $275,000, down 8.3 per cent from the record high $300,000 set in March. Median house prices rose 22 per cent in Canterbury to $560,000 between April 2020 to last month.
Kelvin Davidson, senior property economist at property data firm CoreLogic, said although West Coast and Canterbury house prices were rising, they were still the most affordable in the country relative to income.
The increase to the loan-to-value ratios for investors was already having an impact, he said.
Figures for April showed more first-home buyers were getting into the market, particularly in Christchurch.
Christchurch is our second biggest city and there are lots of jobs. We are seeing younger people moving here into their first homes because its more affordable than Auckland, Hamilton or Dunedin, he said.
For New Zealand excluding Auckland, it was the busiest April in 3 years with 4,627 properties sold.
In the South Island, Nelson had a 15.1 per cent increase from $645,500 in April 2020 to $743,000 in April 2021. Marlborough saw a 46.1 per cent increase from $460,000 to $672,000.
Otago had a whopping 58.8 per cent increase from $447,000 to $710,000. Additionally, Dunedin ($621,120) and Queenstown-Lakes District ($1,200,000) both reached a record median high.
Buller District Council regulatory services manager Sean Judd said the council had experienced a significant rise in people inquiring about and applying for building consents and land information memorandums (LIMs).
Demand for properties on the West Coast continued to grow in April.
From 1 July 2019 to 1 April 2020, 144 applications for land information memorandums (LIMs) were received. This figure more than doubled over the same period of time in 2020/21 to 362 applications.
The number of building consents had almost tripled to 44 in 2019/20 from 17 in 2018/19.
There were 47 building consents approved for new builds during 2020/21 and council had to employ external contractors to keep up with the demand for building inspections.
It is great to see that there is such an interest in moving to Buller.
It appears that people from outside the district are taking advantage of the high prices they are getting for properties in the North Island and buying in cheaper markets, he said.
REINZ acting chief executive Wendy Alexander said Westland had a record median price of $435,000 and Timaru also saw a record price of $440,000 in April.
First-home buyers are snapping up homes in Christchurch because it is more affordable than other main centres.