According to the NZ Herlad, the number of people searching for mortgagee sales on local real estate search website www.realestate.co.nz is growing, as the financial crisis puts more lenders under pressure.

There are now 285 mortgagee listings on the realestate.co.nz site, says chief executive Alistair Helm, up from 218 in December.

It also appeared that lower valued properties were more likely to be put on the market by the banks, with the majority of mortgagee sales listed in the sub $300,000 bracket.

Half of mortgagee listings are apparently in this price range, despite only making up a third of total listings on the website.

The mid price bracket of $300k to $600k is underrepresented in mortgagee listings with just 31 per cent of the 285 listings as compared to 44 per cent of all site listings.

Up until March of last year the words "mortgagee" or "mortgagee sale" were rarely used in the search engine of the site - which lists the majority of properties for sale through real estate agents in New Zealand. Mortgagee sales now generated one of every 12 searches during the year.

But as media articles emerged about home owners in trouble, buyers - especially investors - started looking out for mortgagee sales in the hope of bagging a bargain.