Residential house price growth in Auckland, New Zealand, slowed in the second half of 2015 but is still higher than at the same time last year.

The latest data shows the average price was $822,024 (£391,440) in February, up 1.3% on the average price for January and up 10% year on year while the median price at $738,000 (£351,430) was down 2.9% on January but up 7.5% on last February.

‘While prices are down from their record highs, based on past trends, prices in the coming months are most likely to build modestly,’ said Peter Thompson, managing director of agents Barfoot & Thompson.

‘This trend has occurred over the past nine years where Auckland house prices have followed a cycle of falling in the first quarter of the year and then rising from autumn on. We have now had two months of trading where prices have been higher than they were in their equivalent months last year, and in the past that has meant prices have risen throughout the year,’ he explained.

Thompson added that the most significant figures in February’s data were that sales numbers stalled and new listings doubled while the number of properties sold at 698 was the lowest in any month for three years.