Auction activity may have passed its summer peak

Property / news

The busiest week for housing auctions may have been the last week of February

8th Mar 25, 6:00am by Greg Ninness

There was a drop in the number of properties offered at auction over the last week, suggesting auction activity may already have peaked for the year.

Interest.co.nz monitored the auctions of 557 residential properties around the country over the week of 1-7 March, down from 601 the previous week.

That would make the last week of February the busiest so far this year for auction activity, which would not be a surprise.

The last week of February was also the busiest week of the year in the auction rooms last year.

However, even if the peak in activity has passed, anything over 500 in a week is still a lot properties going under the hammer and the market remains extremely busy.

And while fewer properties were on offer there was no movement in the sales rate, with 206 properties selling under the hammer at the latest auctions, giving an overall sales rate of 37%, unchanged from the previous week.

Details of the individual properties offered at all of the auctions monitored by interest.co.nz, including the selling prices of those that sold, are available on our Residential Auction Results page.

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13 Comments

by Houses Overpriced | 8th Mar 25, 7:22am 1741371775

So the peak has passed, it's downhill from here.. sales and prices..

by IT GUY | 8th Mar 25, 7:43am 1741372984

Record listings . Less then record buyers.

and then there is the pesky law of

Supply and Demand

by Yvil | 8th Mar 25, 8:42am 1741376570

The peak was in 2021, it has well and truely passed HO.

by Yvil | 8th Mar 25, 8:40am 1741376422

Peak auction activity generally occurs in March, it would be unusual for it to have passed already, even though numbers were down last week.

by Time Lord | 8th Mar 25, 9:38am 1741379913

Looking at last year’s numbers, there were more properties offered at auction in March.

But February had the better sales rate

by Averageman | 8th Mar 25, 10:07am 1741381663

I would expect higher numbers in March. Longer month. Less public holidays etc. Then there is whatever the Orange Swan brings....

by kraken | 8th Mar 25, 1:44pm 1741394642

What clearance rate do you need to see for prices to go up? In this 28-44% range, prices have been going down.

315, 131, 42%, 44% : 27 Jan - 2 Feb 2024

291, 102, 35%, 39% : 3-9 Feb 2024

449, 167, 37%, 45% : 10-16 Feb 2024

491, 154, 31%, 42% : 17-23 Feb 2024

619, 212, 34%, 38% : 24 Feb - 1 Mar 2024

573, 190, 33%, 43% : 2-8 Mar 2024

568, 183, 32%, 42% : 16-22 Mar 2024

527, 147, 28%, 34% : 23-29 Mar 2024

303, 91, 30%, 41% : 30 Mar - 5 Apr 2024

472, 132, 28%, 32% : 6-12 Apr 2024

345, 197, 31%, 36% : 13-19 Apr 2024

364, 106, 29%, 44% : 20-26 Apr 2024

437, 136, 31%, 30% : 27 Apr - 3 May 2024

315, 94, 30%, 43% : 11-17 May 2024

375, 113, 30%, 39% : 18-24 May 2024

339, 110, 32%, 35% : 25-31 May 2024

255, 82, 32%, 30% : 1-7 Jun 2024

301, 99, 33%, 34% : 8-14 Jun 2024

282, 83, 29%, 35% : 15-21 Jun 2024

236, 78, 33%, 36% : 22-28 Jun 2024

348, 99, 28%, 34% : 29 Jun - 5 Jul 2024

304, 94, 31%, 28% : 6-12 Jul 2024

212, 66, 31%, 32% : 13-19 Jul 2024

265, 90, 34%, 37% : 20-26 Jul 2024

237, 94, 40%, 28% : 27 Jul - 2 Aug 2024

267, 95, 36%, 35% : 3-9 Aug 2024

255, 104, 41%, 35% : 24-30 Aug 2024

247, 88, 36%, 29% : 31 Aug - 6 Sep 2024

230, 94, 41%, 47% : 7-13 Sep 2024

320, 139, 43%, 36% : 14-20 Sep 2024

356, 141, 40%, 35% : 21-27 Sep 2024

343, 151, 44%, 45% : 28 Sep - 4 Oct 2024

289, 119, 41%, 45% : 5-11 Oct 2024

340, 121, 36%, 39% : 12-18 Oct 2024

438, 192, 44%, 31% : 19-25 Oct 2024

428, 188, 44%, 43% : 26 Oct - 1 Nov 2024

457, 193, 42%, 42% : 2-8 Nov 2024

517, 182, 35%, 37% : 16-22 Nov 2024

497, 182, 37%, 38% : 30 Nov - 6 Dec 2024

431, 175, 41%, 46% : 7-13 Dec 2024

422, 162, 38%, 39% : 8-14 Feb 2025

496, 201, 41%, 42% : 15-21 Feb 2025

601, 222, 37%, 34% : 22-28 Feb 2025

557, 206, 37%, 40% : 1-7 Mar 2025

by Zachary Smith | 8th Mar 25, 2:21pm 1741396901

Clearance rates for auctions have rarely been higher than 50% in New Zealand. Only during the crazy COVID times did they see Sydney levels of clearance. As your list shows, these clearances are quite normal. Properties simply go on to be sold by negotiation with conditions.

by kraken | 8th Mar 25, 4:25pm 1741404358

The clearance rate must be some kind of indicator, the spruikers were celebrating the other week when it reached 41%.

by IT GUY | 8th Mar 25, 4:47pm 1741405655

The only truth is the tape young trader, prices paid.

You must have to have some difficult conversations with the wife.

Suggest that next summer you may well find a bargain, what sort of property you after? ie more land less house , are school zones important etc etc?

by kraken | 8th Mar 25, 7:33pm 1741415613

Your suggestion from a few weeks ago, a house that needs work on a big section. I’m also in Rodney. There's a lot just sitting and not moving above 950k. If those listings drop another 10%, we should have a lot to choose from. Maybe after July, we'll start to "spray and walk away".

A home in this area sold for 350k in Dec 2009 (3 bed, 1 bath) and then sold for 960k in November 2021, that’s a 610k increase over 624 weeks, or about 1k a week for 12 years. If it sold today, I think it would go for around 780k, which is what it sold for in March 2018, 180k below its peak. It's been 170 weeks since November 2021, so that's roughly a 1k a week drop.

It’s tempting to move to Tauranga and be mortgage free. If it weren’t for family and work in Auckland, we would do it.

by IT GUY | 9th Mar 25, 10:58am 1741471103

Wellington housing market downturn hits Northland suburb hard as prices plummet

By Susan Edmunds of RNZ

New Zealand’s housing market downturn has hit Wellington hard – and one suburb of Wellington in particular.

Data from CoreLogic shows values in the Wellington suburb of Northland have fallen from a peak of a median $1.42 million in December 2021 to $985,000 at the end of February. That’s a 30.6% drop.

Head of research Nick Goodall said suburbs across the Wellington region dominated the list of the biggest value falls from the peak of this cycle to the trough.

He said the drop in the Northland suburb and Wellington more generally was reflective of the extreme growth seen in the Covid period across much of the country, driven by cheap and available credit.

That growth did not hold up once interest rates started to increase. The housing market then struggled further recently when the economy softened and unemployment started to rise.

“Perhaps it shows the values being paid for properties there were well above true value, driven more by FOMO and a desire to get into the market at all costs, but that’s a bit speculative on my part.”

Property investor Steve Goodey said Northland had “boomed hard” during the market peak. “It’s very close to the Kelburn campus for Victoria University and international students just haven’t come back in the numbers we had before.”

He said that could put rent under pressure.

Brad Olsen, principal economist at Infometrics, said Wellington in general had dealt with a number of factors that had hit its housing market hard.

The economic environment was challenging, and a housing shortage in previous years had helped drive up prices, which then fell when people could no longer afford to pay them.

Some buyers were opting to move further out of town, which also reduced demand for more central suburbs such as Northland, he said.

Wellington had some of the lowest population growth last year, at 0.2%, but Northland itself had been flat and had lost more population than it gained over the past four years. It might also have been a popular spot for public sector workers who have faced job insecurity.

CoreLogic’s data for February showed Kāpiti Coast prices up 0.3% for the month, Porirua flat, Upper Hutt up 0.5%, Lower Hutt up 0.4% and the central Wellington area flat.

“Wellington still faces some economic challenges in the near term, given the restraint on public sector expenditure. But housing affordability across the capital is far less stretched than it was two to three years ago, which is likely to have played a role in helping bring some buyers back to the table in February,” economist Kelvin Davidson said.

The central Wellington region still has prices 1.1% lower than three months ago.

by kraken | 9th Mar 25, 12:33pm 1741476826

CoreLogic likes to hype things up, so if they’re saying Wellington is down 30%, it must be bad. They’re also saying the downturn is over because the Monthly Change in HVI (%) is 0.28%.

But we’re still down -3.82% Annual Change HVI (%) nationwide and -5.68% for Auckland. So we've only had a quarter over the summer months where prices were flat perhaps from OCR cuts before summer and a forecast of the one that just happened.

As we head into winter, inventory is piling up already at 2015 levels, and unemployment is forecast to rise from 5.1% to 5.5%. NZ could even become a net exporter for immigration. Also not a good look with Orr leaving.

The only thing I’ve heard in favour of house prices is lower oil prices and a lower OCR, but if oil has bottomed and we don’t see any more OCR cuts, is there anything left to support the NZ housing market? Watercare restrictions?

Aside from CoreLogic, what other groups put out similar data?