PHOTO: LIZ MCDONALD/STUFF In the final quarter of 2018, the share of purchases going to “movers” dropped to 26 per cent from 28 per cent a year earlier.

2018 was the year to buy a first home for many New Zealanders.

New data from Corelogic shows first-time buyers are an increasingly large proportion of the property market’s transactions, and even the country’s highest prices aren’t enough to put them off.

They made up 23 per cent of all New Zealand residential property purchases in the last quarter of 2018, from 22 per cent in 2017.

Even in Auckland, with an average price of more than $1 million and a median of $850,000, first-time buyers were 26 per cent of the market, the biggest share since 2008.

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