With sales taking snail like gait, winter and purchasers in a strong position seem to be showing no interest in buying property, has made house prices lose ground once more in Christchurch.

The most recent statistics from the Real Estate Institute demonstrate the city's median price in May was $323,750, falling from $330,000 in April. The Canterbury-Westland May median price of $306,000 saw a slump from April's $310,000.

Christchurch prices have been increasing and down since reaching a peak at Christmas when not many homes were on the market. On the other hand, values are still advanced than a year before after seeing an increase through much of 2009.

May sales were down by approximately 20% on the similar time in the previous year for both city and region, with 492 homes sold in the city compared with 609 in the month of May 2009.

All over the country, homes took a median of 43 days to put up for sale, which is down from 40 in April.

Institute President, Peter McDonald expressed the drops in property values as not important.

Harcourts head of real estate operations, Bryan Thomson said that May was a sluggish month, with pre-Budget uncertainty concerning tax changes impacting upon the scenario.