A third of properties sold under the hammer at Barfoot & Thompson's latest auctions

Property / news

Slight drop in the number of properties offered at Barfoot & Thompson's latest auctions but the sales rate rose

12th Mar 22, 6:59am by Greg Ninness

Barfoot and Thompson offered slightly fewer properties at their latest auctions but the sales rate edged up.

That was a reversal of the trend over the previous few weeks when the number of properties being auctioned was rising but the sales rate had been going down.

Altogether Barfoots marketed 226 residential properties for auction in the week of 5-11 March, down slightly from 242 the previous week.

Sales were achieved on 74 of those, up from 53 the previous week, which pushed the overall sales rate up to 33% from 22%.

As usual there were some significant variations in the sales rates around the Auckland region.

The sales rate for Manukau properties was just 20%, while North Shore properties were more than twice as likely to sell under the hammer, with an overall sales rate of 45%. (See the table below for the full district-by-district results).

Details of the individual properties offered at all of the auctions monitored by interest.co.nz and the results achieved, are available on our Residential Auction Results page.

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77 Comments

by Dgm | 12th Mar 22, 7:49am 1647024587

Pressure building up for sellers... more properties being passed in and properties offered by PbN is increasing..

Even the wordings on the ads are getting defensive from aggressive..

https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/41042

by burgleman | 12th Mar 22, 8:36am 1647027366

Our young family have been looking at upgrading property for the past year. We recently played bridesmaid on a house in central Auckland last November up against four strong bidders, went well over our self imposed limit. The house two doors down come on the market early this year and we were interested, agent said not much interest, sent a relative to the auction on our behalf as we suspected it would be passed in and they were the only one at the auction....

We are amazed / shocked how quickly the market has turned. The above mentioned property would have sold under the hammer no problems six months ago.

by Dgm | 12th Mar 22, 9:03am 1647028986

A property couple of doors from us passed in at auction and had a price range of around 1.5M.. new agents were called to apraise the property and the guide is now around 1.2M if they are serious about a sale..

Agents are now laying down the facts, rather than fluffing around

by Flying high | 12th Mar 22, 9:05pm 1647072328

Is home on Fear St or Elm St

One of my many tenants handed notice this week telling me they just bought. They paid 1 mill (I know its surprising they had or got the money) for a good sth auck suburb so repayments probably about the same as rent

by JJS | 12th Mar 22, 9:43am 1647031400

I'd hold tight until vendors start getting desperate in winter...

by burgleman | 12th Mar 22, 10:05am 1647032725

Yep we are holding tight. Given this article last week https://www.interest.co.nz/property/114621/cooling-auckland-housing-mar… we are now pricing houses ~20% below the November highs, we run a large spreadsheet with the sales data for the specific area we are looking in.

Should the OCR go up, we lower our pricing point on the spreadsheet.

by John2 | 12th Mar 22, 5:42pm 1647060125

Hate to disappoint you but spreadsheets meant sh*t in the property market.

The fact is no one can predict , yes we have cycles but hoping it to fall 20% or more (in your OCR statement ) is just plain radicolous.

by Flying high | 12th Mar 22, 8:25pm 1647069917

Fed reserve are going cold on rate increases. Just wait for the FOMC announcement this week, expected to be qtr percent up but dovish tone

by tothepoint | 12th Mar 22, 12:13pm 1647040439

The gist of today’s story is that a soft-landing is underway.

We’re witnessing a correction ✅ not a crash. 💥

Tough luck for the little Doom Goblins lurking here…… you’re not going to see the crisis you’ve been so yearning for. ☹️

TTP

by Zen20 | 12th Mar 22, 9:41am 1647031291

We've had the crisis dude, now we need the fix

by DDDDebt | 12th Mar 22, 9:57am 1647032230

Darryl "What's he want?"

Steve "A soft landing"

Darryl "Tell him he's dreaming!"

by DDDDebt | 12th Mar 22, 10:59am 1647035979

The soft landing will be at the point houses are more affordable and it's cheaper to own than rent.

So it all comes down to interest rate rises stopping... and everyones revisions of where that is, keeps rising.

And what happens in the wider economy with the cost of living and jobs etc.

But don't discount the sentiment and FOGO when people accept we had a well documented bubble that burst... with the proof being falling prices nationwide across all price points.

by Flying high | 12th Mar 22, 8:34pm 1647070479

It is already cheaper to pay a mortgage in the majority of cases

And interest rate rises will be slowing, just ask Housie Mouse aka Ind Ob

by Amokk | 12th Mar 22, 10:20am 1647033605

Keep it coming Tim.....coz we should all trust someone who engaged in price-fixing and anti-competitive behaviour eh chief

Commerce Commission - Property Brokers Limited and its sole Director Timothy John Mordaunt (comcom.govt.nz)

Manawatu companies caught up in real estate investigation | Stuff.co.nz

by Luke83 | 12th Mar 22, 10:24am 1647033879

TTP the Doom merchants here love to think housing will now be affordable for everyone, haha house might be 50k cheaper but interest rates eat that up in affordability. Soft landing to only lift by the end of 2022 once interest rate hikes settle, lending restrictions ease, as we are seeing as of only a few days ago and we see net migration increase. I still say 5% plus ytd by December. Just my opinion.

by DDDDebt | 12th Mar 22, 10:57am 1647035872

They won't be affordable for everyone. There are those that never can afford to get on the first rung of the ladder.

by Carlos67 | 12th Mar 22, 11:16am 1647036984

I'm with you Luke a bit of a dip then a recovery before the end of the year. Prices still up in single digits for the year down here in Tauranga.

by Independent_Observer | 12th Mar 22, 11:20am 1647037227

You need to question your paradigm when believing that housing being affordable for the working class of a society is doom.

by Solid_Granite | 12th Mar 22, 11:28am 1647037711

Yeah I bet those doom and gloom merchants support world peace too

by Independent_Observer | 12th Mar 22, 11:49am 1647038949

The definition of doom appears to be anything that might negatively impact the value of ones personal property portfolio as opposed to the ability for a society to create opportunities and the hope of prosperity for younger generations.

Those who think creating opportunities of prosperity for younger people is doom aren’t the type of people you want influencing a society - because if they do - society ends up in hell…

by Nzdan | 12th Mar 22, 12:34pm 1647041684

Wait wait wait, so house prices will drop but interest rates go up so mortgage serviceability doesn't change? Oh golly gosh, did you ever consider it wasn't the cost of having a mortgage but actually getting the mortgage that was the biggest hurdle over the last 10 years for First Home Buyers??!?

What's the prerequisite of getting a mortgage? An unconditional purchase on a house with an adequate deposit. As house prices drop, so does the required deposit in dollar terms......

by Jonny_Utah | 12th Mar 22, 2:26pm 1647048418

Add to that the increasing value of supplementary payments. Add more upside in the potential for rates to decrease.

A lower price and a higher interest rate is by far preferable.

it also provides great fixed returns on financial assets for those in or entering retirement.

by house hunter | 12th Mar 22, 10:39am 1647034778

A crash is just a soft landing until the pilot realises the ground isn't where they thought it was.

by DDDDebt | 12th Mar 22, 11:27pm 1647080833

Anyone who has lived through the housing crashes in Spain, Ireland and the US this century will tell you the market there never turned overnight as fast and suddenly downwards as it has here.

This will take some serious support to make it a soft landing.

But ask anyone who has lived in Zimbabwe, Argentina, Venezuela etc and they will tell you that falling house prices are the least of your worries if you have high inflation to deal with.

Look at what happened at petrol stations yesterday if you want a clue.

by Zachary Smith | 12th Mar 22, 9:06am 1647029188

These are surprisingly good results...when you consider all the negative things going on.

by Dgm | 12th Mar 22, 9:39am 1647031152

Completely agree from a spruikers perspective

by Double-GZ | 12th Mar 22, 7:26pm 1647066384

Zachary, you're so right that the auction results are pretty healthy. Did you read the article on One Roof Property today?

Quoting from the article, <i>"...a brand new five-bedroom luxury house on Arney Road, in Remuera, sold for $5.58m – well above its new CV of $3.6m. Agent Sarah Liu, who marketed the 659sqm double grammar zone property, said the CV did not make sense. According to her. you’d be looking at $3.5m to $4m for the land alone on Arney Road. And then you’ve got a brand new beautiful house, very elegant inside."</i>

The prices are holding firm if you're selling in the right suburbs.

by DDDDebt | 12th Mar 22, 11:15pm 1647080127

Nice one Terry, say Hi to Diana.

by JJS | 12th Mar 22, 9:42am 1647031359

I've also noticed a few properties change from "Auction" to "Deadline Sale" part way through the campaign.

Surely tender / deadline sale is the way to go now - everyone puts their best foot forward and those who are conditional also have a shot. Agents don't like it as they are always more complicated than an unconditional auction

by Zen20 | 12th Mar 22, 9:46am 1647031583

Entertaining chat with Irish economist David McWilliams on Natrad this morning. In his opinion interest rates are going to rise slowly in small increments. Next Orrsum hike .25% if any.

by hum | 12th Mar 22, 10:06am 1647032777

How much the owner is getting charged for a failed auction?

by Dgm | 12th Mar 22, 10:09am 1647032960

Couple of grand and their ego

by JJS | 12th Mar 22, 11:19am 1647037168

You can negotiate with RE Agents when it comes to their fees, but many don't

by Just Some Advice | 12th Mar 22, 11:24am 1647037447

Properties are coming onto the market with an asking price.

Negotiation signs everywhere.

Interest rates rising.

Plenty of supply.

Gonna be an absolute bloodbath.

by Dgm | 12th Mar 22, 11:27am 1647037671

You are not permitted to state facts.

by Carlos67 | 12th Mar 22, 12:05pm 1647039933

Not facts at this stage of the game its mainly predictions and what people want to happen on here. Lets look at the next quarterly "Facts" on house prices first. Yes there will be a drop, how much is as yet to be seen. Drops are not going to be even across the country either, those places that had the highest recent gains are going to potentially see the greatest falls. Expecting some lag in price falls in the regions as well. Covid has changed things and working from home has increased so why live in Auckland when you can move anywhere.

by Dgm | 12th Mar 22, 12:14pm 1647040475

I agree with 99% of what you have stated.. but not sure why you claim that 'facts' quoted above are too early to state, when that is exactly what is happening at the moment..

Not sure if anyone has claimed a crash at this point in time

by Independent_Observer | 12th Mar 22, 12:32pm 1647041557

And having experienced the crash in the US it’s difficult to tell what is happening at the time…but then very clear in retrospect. A small amount of fear and talk of falling prices rapidly turns into a rush…but if by then you haven’t acted and sold you have to eat your losses because you are doing the same thing as everyone else at the same time (trying to sell and prevent further losses).

Not really an issue if you only own one home and mostly debt free. Absolutely hell if you own multiple properties (or a single property) with lots of debt.

by Brock Landers | 12th Mar 22, 1:04pm 1647043457

Take it a step further, with WFH why live in New Zealand when you can live anywhere.

by Carlos67 | 12th Mar 22, 1:50pm 1647046242

Dont let the door hit you in the backside on the way out, nobody is stopping you leaving but your still here.

by Brock Landers | 12th Mar 22, 8:36pm 1647070600

Overseas at the moment, remote working is great.

Now put on your big boy pants and learn the difference between your and you're.

by JJS | 12th Mar 22, 1:51pm 1647046273

I don't buy this "you can work from anywhere" - I'm sure that 95% of roles that allow some form of WFH require you turn up to an office for some part of your work week. Even if its a day a week I doubt I'd want to commute from somewhere like Napier all the way back to Auckland.

by Jonny_Utah | 12th Mar 22, 2:30pm 1647048608

Also wishful thinking. If I’m hiring from a globally distributed workforce, I’m not paying Anglosphere salaries.

by Carlos67 | 12th Mar 22, 3:17pm 1647051454

Not sure why, NZ is one big giant ripoff for many products as it is so if your going to want to pay peanuts for overseas staff and still rip us off then I'm going to buy direct from overseas and cut out the middle man.

by tothepoint | 12th Mar 22, 1:21pm 1647044475

Negotiation signs everywhere.

Gonna be an absolute bloodbath.

Only the uninitiated will be swayed by such emotive language.

TTP

by DDDDebt | 12th Mar 22, 4:04pm 1647054272

TTP

All the best with your Tender next week.

by Carlos67 | 12th Mar 22, 3:48pm 1647053335

Ouch you really want to remain anonymous on this site or else you pickup some serious stalkers. Looks to me that some people also have multiple profiles on here so they can go full attack mode and then uptick themselves and not care if they get booted off. Some people with serious mental issues beginning to show up on here, its not good.

by Waikatohome | 12th Mar 22, 4:01pm 1647054094

Play the ball not the man.

by DDDDebt | 13th Mar 22, 3:49pm 1647139798

You are correct. That man has enough to deal with at present.

Though I'm not sure that wanting homes to be more affordable for the next generation than they are now, and as such standing up to the mega-landlords or spruikers who continue to pump the market (when it has clearly turned) can be considered a serious mental health problem.

by tomjones_04 | 12th Mar 22, 9:03pm 1647072194

If Tim and TTP are one and the same… man, he definitely has a face for radio!

by Flying high | 12th Mar 22, 9:09pm 1647072563

Where is the mouse today... on leave without?

Some have changed their tune from talking the market down to acceptance of pricing after buying a house

by DDDDebt | 12th Mar 22, 11:23pm 1647080589

No one needs to talk the market down… it’s doing a great job on its own.

If you don’t believe that, try and sell your house or talk to someone who is.

If you think it’s a great time to buy, fill your boots.

by Flying high | 13th Mar 22, 8:35am 1647113718

How do YOU decipher whether it is a "great time" or not other than house prices are going up or going down?

There is a whole other practical side of a house ... it has a roof and meets the owners needs. Many real estate decisions are born out of need such as providing for a growing family

If you think people here do not push their own barrows you are dreaming. Yes it is an ok time to buy and for those who are serious they have less competition and more time to choose

by DDDDebt | 13th Mar 22, 4:23pm 1647141825

"One of my many tenants handed notice this week"

Well your position is clear, and we also know that TTP is another mega-landlord so we know which barrow you are both pushing.

My guess is that the majority of spruikers on here are either RE agents or people that are heavily vested or leveraged and would suffer if house values dropped considerably and returned to more affordable levels.

It's a good time to buy if you really believe prices have stopped falling, we are at the start of the cycle, you have a truckload of equity as a deposit and can afford interest rates and associated ownership costs to increase by an unknown magnitude.

It's a bad time to buy if you will be heavily leveraged with 80% debt, have no savings in reserve, and your employment is not recession proof.. with inflation now out of the bag... especially if you have a young family.

So everyone will have their own situation and risk profile.

by HW2 | 13th Mar 22, 5:44pm 1647146688

Well for us we have bought (and sold) in times of high medium and low demand so for us it is not a concern. We have always added value and come up trumps. Was 07 a good time to buy, what about 09, how about 1997 and 1998 if you were around then

You could say that we know a good thing when we see it. Am now in my 30th year of property ownership.

One thing I have learned is that property is not volatile on the downside. There are down-trends and recessions but you see those coming. Like the spectre of rising interest rates affecting confidence. Even the so called black swan events of CCCFA and tax deductibility changes have not caused a crash, merely a blip despite the predictions from both teams.

by Fitzgerald | 13th Mar 22, 7:44pm 1647153886

Taleb's turkey :-)

by Waikatohome | 13th Mar 22, 9:08pm 1647158901

Covid, CCCFA and Ukraine. Taleb never warned us that Black Swans could come in flocks. Chaos and uncertainty seems to be the new normal.

by Essen | 13th Mar 22, 10:21pm 1647163292

COVID was not a black swan. Ukraine, at least militarily, is not a black swan either.

by HW2 | 14th Mar 22, 7:02am 1647194573

What Is a Black Swan? A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.

Who is the turkey? You know you got your point across when the argument becomes about semantics

by Carlos67 | 14th Mar 22, 3:46pm 1647225992

Yep or just plain old spelling when they get desperate.

by Llama_360 | 12th Mar 22, 3:07pm 1647050850

I'm sure there are quite a few people like me who sensed the peak of the market coming and have decided to see if they can sell at the peak. We listed a few weeks ago. Looks like we will not be getting what we want so will just decide to stay put. I'm sure there are also a lot of people out there who have overextended and may be forced to sell into a soft market. I think it will be a gradual softening over the next few months but there is a high chance of a recession which will wipe a lot of people out.

by Waikatohome | 12th Mar 22, 3:42pm 1647052955

Unfortunately the peak was November 2021. If you had listed your property then, it would have sold straight away. For most people, making money on property is luck. I include myself in that statement. I have won some and lost some. I won when I could choose when to sell and lost when I had to sell (due to a job change).

by streetwise | 12th Mar 22, 12:46pm 1647042370

I think the housing market will pick up again when we take in our United Nations assigned quota of something over 100,0000 Ukrainian refugees.

Hopefully, we choose them carefully so they can fill our vast pool of vacant jobs. Apparently, Kainga Ora will be doing the buying up of houses from the open market to house them all because all our motels are overflowing currently. They will need to buy something like 20,000 houses in the local market to achieve this. Recent history shows that Kainga Ora will more often than not pay the full asking price so more competition for FHBs.

by Fitzgerald | 12th Mar 22, 1:00pm 1647043243

IF they owned property freehold in Ukraine and IF they were lucky enough to be able to sell it, to move to NZ, then a quick Google search of Ukrainian house/apartment prices says that they would be lucky to have a couple of hundred thousand NZ dollars to put towards a property here.

An average kind of Ukrainian dwelling costs the same as a house deposit for a rot box in South Auckland.

by streetwise | 12th Mar 22, 6:35pm 1647063309

Fitzgerald

Sorry, but I shouldn't have to spell out that Kainga Ora was buying them up for housing the Ukrainian refugees, not to on-sell them to the refugees.

I would have thought this understanding would be self-evident to you and you merry band of 5 likers.

See my reply to Realterms below.

by realterms | 12th Mar 22, 1:35pm 1647045340

You probably need to work on your back-of-the-envelope maths skills. Exactly how many Ukr refugees are you anticipating so that NZ's share, under any kind of reasonable allocation, could be anywhere close to 100k? Nonsense.

by streetwise | 12th Mar 22, 6:41pm 1647063707

Realterms

These aren't my figures; one of the many Sky Tv news channels that I watch late at night was interviewing a spokesman from a humanitarian think tank who was talking about possible Western destinations for a large proportion of Ukrainians 44 million population most of them not wanting to live under the Russian yoke which realistically will be the end result of the invasion. They were giving their estimate as to what they thought each of those countries could accommodate if push came to shove. From memory, they thought Australia could take up to 500,000. USA already have more than a million ex-Ukrainians in various enclaves but are willing to take a lot more, and of course Poland and Germany have a couple of million between them albeit most of those on a temporary basis until countries like New Zealand and Australia take them permanently.

The opinions of Realterms and Fitzgerald, and their 'likers', is one reason why we need more immigrants such as Ukrainians with their higher IQs.

by realterms | 13th Mar 22, 2:48pm 1647136114

I suggest you think about what you hear on TV. Turns out a lot of that is nonsense too. And insults will get you nowhere.

In this particular case, there is a massive difference between "could" (if we wanted to badly enough) and "UN quota".

by DDDDebt | 13th Mar 22, 3:24pm 1647138276

Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen etc are all war torn countries and part of the UN

750-1000 was the quota we agreed for 2021/22

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/what-we-do/our-strategies-and-…

by John2 | 12th Mar 22, 5:55pm 1647060904

Reversal of CCCFA and migration numbers may slow this down to some extend

by mikekirk29 | 13th Mar 22, 1:11am 1647087117

Number under auction went down. In mid March?

Wakey wakey folks

Sorry, Pollyanna perma-bulls, the DGM moment has arrived and will persist for 2 years at least

Boom due to returning Kiwis? Ha

by Dgm | 13th Mar 22, 11:28am 1647124085

The person that quoted about returning kiwi's is pretty bad with math, they forgot to mention the other side of the equation.. leaving kiwis

by mikekirk29 | 13th Mar 22, 1:16am 1647087402

By the way, when considering what affordable means: income has to take into account what the income needs to pay for now, when inflation is 8% and rising. So, disposable income is shrinking and rates are rising folks. But of course it will be a soft landing. What model in economics do these twerps use?

by the way | 13th Mar 22, 12:12pm 1647126760

"a reversal of the trend over the previous few weeks... which pushed the sales rate up to 33% from 22%."

The take home is the sales rate is up 11% for the first week of March.

February is always the lowest point for real estate sales in any calendar year.

Tomorrow's REINZ data will probably help "the sky is falling" narrative but will also only relate to February.

The March data will be more revealing of the true story and I won't be surprised to still see price growth at the end of the year.

by linklater01 | 13th Mar 22, 4:50pm 1647143419

Well, if this means that thousands of 'professional' agents are released for useful work like stacking supermarket shelves or driving food delivery vans, that's all to the good.

I read today that around of 1/3rd of all agents have been attracted to the 'profession' over the past few years, so it's clearly not that hard to become one. Yet, the same article says that ever more Kiwis want the benefit of their 'professionalism'. I find this bizarre. The financial stupidity of so many here never ceases to baffle me.

by Zen20 | 14th Mar 22, 4:19pm 1647227960

I worked in the industry for 15 years (not as a salesperson may i add, i was in marketing). Many salespeople were bored housewives who had very wealthy husbands. They will just go back to lunch with the ladies and tennis ... no problem.

by John2 | 14th Mar 22, 10:57am 1647208661

Last February, 8300 homes were sold but that fell 5500 last month while in Auckland, last year's 2900 dropped to 1740.

Prices rose only marginally nationally, up 0.6 per cent from January's $880,000 to $885,000 last month.

Auckland prices dropped from January's $1.2m median to $1.19m last month so a point 0 .8 drop

REINZ data showed national house sale volumes dropped 33 per cent annually but Auckland volumes fell by 40 per cent.