House sales hit low as prices sag.....

The Real Estate Institute recorded only 458 sales across Canterbury Westland last month and 3252 nationally, less than a third of sales at the height of the property boom and the lowest since electronic records were first kept in 1992.
Prices have sunk back to 2007 levels and are now 5 per cent below their peak.
Lincoln University property professor Sandy Bond said she had been house hunting herself and found it frustrating.
"There is pent-up demand but there's very little available. People just aren't prepared to put their property on the market because they know they won't get what they want for it.
"Prices are stable or dropping, and they don't want to go into a market like that."
Bond said the earthquake had further dampened Canterbury sales, with many people putting off decisions.
The head of the Real Estate Institute, Helen O'Sullivan, said that while January was always a quiet month for sales, last month saw the "lowest ever level" of both listings and sales.
With relatively low interest rates and good rental demand in the cities, neither homeowners nor investors were under pressure to sell, O'Sullivan said.
The institute's figures showed median prices were down from December in Canterbury-Westland and Christchurch to $300,000 and $330,000 respectively.
Christchurch house-hunters John and Lesley Cowie have been looking unsuccessfully for a first home for eight months.
With two asthmatic children in a damp rental property, they are eager to buy and are approved for a mortgage, but frustrated at the lack of choice.
"There's a real lack of decent houses in our price range," Lesley Cowie said. "It's hard to get something warm and dry that doesn't need a lot of work. Some of them have earthquake damage and haven't even been inspected. There are owners that have paid a lot for them, so they don't want to lower their price, and I can understand that."
Most weekends there were only about two open homes to view, and they were struggling to maintain enthusiasm for the hunt, Cowie said.
Within Christchurch, the dearest median prices last month were in the Redcliffs-Sumner area, and on the Port Hills.
The cheapest districts were Aranui-Bexley-Bromley and Sydenham-Waltham, where the median prices are under $250,000.
In the town of Kaiapoi, where earthquake damage was extensive, prices have slumped on the back of low sales, while Rangiora prices rose against the trend.

Homes across the region are taking an average of seven weeks
to sell.