Rise can't continue at this rate: Helm

He has released new data that shows that in the past five years, Auckland house values have increased 52%, or an inflation-adjusted 37.8%.

Almost all of that rise has occurred in the past two years – before that prices were relatively stagnant as the economy recovered from the global financial crisis.

Since October 2011, the CPI-adjusted Auckland median house price has risen more than 29%,  a larger increase than was reported between December 2001 and January 2004, a period which many commentators have said was a level of inflation that it would not be seen again.

Helm said it was hard to tell whether prices would continue to rise this year as they had from 2004.