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Canterbury remains the most buoyant auction market with just over half the auctioned properties selling under the hammer compared to 28% in Auckland

Property / news
Canterbury remains the most buoyant auction market with just over half the auctioned properties selling under the hammer compared to 28% in Auckland
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The number of properties being brought to auction continues to decline but the sales rate edged up last week.

Interest.co.nz monitored the auctions of 182 residential properties last week (7-13 May), down from 233 the previous week and 230 the week before that.

Of the 2182 properties offered at last week's auctions, 57 sold under the hammer, giving an overall sales rate of 31%. That's up a tad from 30% the previous week and just 23% the week before that.

Canterbury remains the most buoyant market for selling by auction, with a sales rate of 54% last week, unchanged from the previous week and up from 41% the week before that.

Auction rooms remained subdued in the Bay of Plenty with a sales rate of just 18% last week, while Auckland and Waikato were neck and neck with sales rates of 28% and 30% respectively.

The table below shows the sales rates in all districts where interest.co.nz monitored auction activity last week.

Details of the individual properties offered and the prices achieved for the properties that sold, are available on our Residential Auction Results page.

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53 Comments

Makes sense. Why would you select auctions in the current market when the last three months shows them to be a waste of time and money. Add in  everyone else is more or less locked out with the cost of finance, which will continue to rise. Will be a very tough year for agents as sellers sit on their cheap mortgages waiting for another boom (good luck with that), and young potential buyers continue to export themselves as stats are already showing.

 

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True but if a vendor is willing to meet the market auctions still selling 25% rate....     if you need out there is a way....

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Got excited when I saw "half selling under the hammer" in the headline so had to click. Immediately deflated when I saw the total sample for the region was 15. 

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who bought the half a house ?

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A First Half-home Buyer.  All they could afford.

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someone with a very long half-life

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I guess there are always some that have to buy now or have found their dream home - no other explanation as why you would buy on a cliff edge.

 

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The malaise after the bursting of the property bubble may prove to be quite resilient.

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15

Those who were invested during and throughout the aftermath of the GFC, will have seen it all before. Five years max. Keep an eye on Auckland for the recovery. 

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No they haven't seen it before.

Mortgage rates fell ~5% during the GFC.

Mortgage rates are rising now.

Completely different situation.

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32

Perhaps he means they trust the government and Reserve Bank to come up with a plan to prop up or bail out speculators.

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That is just a bank bail out in disguise. Absolutely should NOT happen.

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Fully agree, any form of bail out should not be tolerated.

It would revalidate moral hazard.

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It should not happen, but it will, because all the institutions are aligned to continue the Ponzi. Not until all Government credit is exhausted will the transfer of wealth from the poor to the house-rich be halted.

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Mortgage rates fell. But this was of no use to most, as they didn't qualify for lending. Similar to what we are seeing now. 

Others, like before, will still qualify regardless of what is happening. They will re-enter the market when they feel it's the right time.

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This downturn is different. Earlier whenever market softens, RBNZ will intervene to manipulate by dropping interest rate, LVR.....but this is the first time in decades that market is falling and RBNZ has no choice but to increase the rate.

End of Long - two or three decade of Bull run for housing market.

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Around 30 percent of properties selling at auction doesn't sound like a crash.

TTP

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You’re right. That percentage statistic alone doesn’t sound like a crash. Though I’m sure if you consider basic principles of supply and demand then it’s easy to see what’s happening.

Ignoring the other environmental conditions of the current housing market would be foolish. The money has stopped pouring in, there’s none left for now, it’s dried up. So long as the double whammy of interest and inflation eat away at DSTI, there will be less and less money entering the market by the day. 

It’s stalling faster than a learner driver in an empty parking lot.

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As Bush once said "This sucker is going down....."           TTP feel free to step up and buy... all the way down !

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It is compared to "normal" operation.  Just need to watch the auctions online.  Most B&T auctions yesterday passed in with no interest whatsoever, a few half hearted starting low bids often below where the auctioneer wants to start. 

And for the ones sold, often slow bidding, lots of stops whilst negotiations go in in the background to get the vendor to drop their reserve, and most properties selling for 10-15% below their 2021 CVs, with a few exceptions - normally at the high end of the market.

But properties that would have been the subject of heated bidding especially in the $1 - 1.5 range 6-9 months ago, reaching prices well over their expectations are now not moving.    

It doesn't sound like crash to you because your hands are clearly clamped over your ears.

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The vendors who got genuine bids yesterday and did not sell are a worry. You just turned down an unconditional offer in a rapidly falling market. Do you actually want to sell? Was the property marketed and advertised well? Then the VALUE of your property was the PRICE price offered yesterday. A better tomorrow is a long way away.

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I've watched the agents in those auction rooms work the vendor hard - I recall one lady vendor with three male agents in a room at the back of the auction room, one sitting next to her, one standing over and one in the doorway.  They were doing the good cop bad cop routine better than a Mickey Spillane novel.  Remember for them, its the difference between immediate and guarranteed commission or returning to the market with pesky open homes and offers on paper with conditions and stuff. 

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Exactly. Watched this up close during the GFC. Not pretty, and certianly not in the sellers interests.

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.

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RE agents ONLY work in their own interests.

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..

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Selling & buying in the same market could be described as risk neutral, but of course, it is never that simple. We've had family involved in re-negotiations recently, after the deal was done. It was in a chain so it had knock-on effects, all downwards.

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All it takes is for the FHB at the end of the chain of "subject to sale" clauses to have their subject to finance clause fall through.  

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Definitely some noises being made about buyers being prepared to walk and lose the deposit. Tells you plenty.

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Better to lose deposit than pay 25% more than its worth next month

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11

Who's happily walking away without their 10% deposit? Not many, if any...

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The problem is Nifty is some developers only offer a 5% deposit. Which makes it very easy to walk away from especially if you believe the price has dropped 15-20% on what you paid. It also leaves you in a very bad place if you have then bought with a 10% deposit....

Such as these people.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/real-estate/128403463/develope…

 

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Yeah for sure but I don't think anyone easily walks away with losing money - whether it be 5% or 10%.... it's worst case scenario stuff for buyers.

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Agree.

even 5% is 40k on a 800k purchase. For many FHBs, that’s very significant.

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Probably not fhbs. Or even other OOs. But developers? See ex agent below. 

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Nobody said they were happy about it. Just that they judged it the least bad option. 

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Unfortunately it's not as easy as just walking away from the deposit.  The contract is for the agreed price, and the purchaser is liable for that.  If they walk away...sure they lose the deposit, but they can now be sued for *all* losses incurred by the vendor, up to and including the difference between the agreed price and the final selling price, if it is lower.

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Th developer will often be using a company that has no assets. It will not be worth suing for any losses and costs incurred by the vendor. When you deal with buyers who are developers you are taking a risk. Especially if you are buy another home based on the sale to a developer. That has obvious risks attached to it.

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Yes agents happy to get you to sign auction variation agreements without explaining the risks!!!!!   long settlement, small deposit etc etc....    you playing Russian roulette   with who wins the auction.....     the issue for agents is there ARE NO BUYERS HERE

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P0nZ1!

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... poNZi : last in , worst off ... NZ ran out of fools willing to pay these prices  ... Buttcoin holders are finding that out now , too ... 

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well... two very different things

People problems in securing an house is a huge social issue.

People losing money in investing in an highly speculative asset in another story.

The problem here is that houses became also an highly speculative asset.

But yeh, you right:  last in , worst off 

 

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1043 units for rent on TradeMe in Auckland, will monitor this. 
456 townhouses.

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-7,300 Immigration in March

-16k in April (unofficial data of departure and arrivals at border)

May so far this month it is even - (open to more Visa holder now)

 

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July is border open time, I suspect we will start to see the study visa for residency scam start up again.

I do not want more immigration this is counter progress as far as I am concerned.  It depresses wages, puts our infrastructure (health etc not just water and power) under un-planned pressure and puts the brakes on rents coming down.  (they will still come down but slower).

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If you want to feel depressed read this - 

 

https://democracyproject.nz/2022/05/14/bryce-edwards-what-happened-to-t…

‘A second list of less desired occupations requires having to work for two years before applying for residency. According to Faafoi, these new categories would be uncapped, allowing for significant levels of migration…idea of having tight caps on immigration has gone...

…Certainly, there is a sense of Labour wanting to turn the taps of immigration back on in order to give the economy a quick injection of growth.

It’s unclear to what extent the new uncapped immigration categories will lead to mass immigration again. Faafoi didn’t deal with this in his announcement, and surprisingly, journalists haven’t asked.

As one immigration advisor has noted, this could be a huge change to the settings. Iain MacLeod comments today: “If indeed the Government no longer intends to have caps, quotas, or targets of Resident Visas, it is a first in my 30 years of practice. For a government obsessed about managing ‘numbers’, to abandon that would be the biggest immigration news story in decades.” ‘

 

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You'll be surprised how many 20-30's are wanting to leave NZ this year. 

Already seeing rentals on TM being re-listed with cheaper price, no longer the days of 10+ groups lining up before the agent arrives. 

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multiple resignations this week at my employer, people going to uk for the big oe

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An acquaintance in civil engineering told me the other day that a bit of an exodus of young civil engineers is occurring right now. 

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3% of people in their 20s have already left, and 4% of those between 25-29. I'm not sure what's normal pre-Covid but that seems like an awful lot to have left, and anecdotally I see a lot more going. We could easily lose 1 in 10 of our 20-somethings and this will of course be skewed to the higher educated and higher earning. 

"But the working age population shrank 0.2% in the year, with a 3.1% reduction in the number of people in their 20s.

The number of 20 to 39-year-olds was down 0.7%, while the number aged 25 to 29 dropped 4%."

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300589751/brain-drain-is-under-way-wor…

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If I was that demographic I would vote with my feet as well.

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Have you heard recently any FHBs complaining they cannot get into the market? I guess they are not too concerned when they are not up for a capital gain. Hard to imagine who is interested in buying now with all the Government changes.

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Scene 1

Homeowners buy and sell amongst each other.

House prices could rise, fall or remain as it is.

Scene 2

FHB is unable to get a loan

When stock is in excess, new builds etc

House prices decline.

 

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