Auction room activity has made a reasonable start to 2026, with interest.co.nz monitoring 255 residential property auctions around the country up until January 30, with 109 of those selling under the hammer.
That gave an average sales rate of 43% for the start of the year. That's slightly better than the average sales rate of 39% over 2025, suggesting a cautiously positive outlook for this year.
January is traditionally a fairly quiet month for auctions, with new listings starting to pour into the agencies from around the middle of the month, but auction activity not building up a decent head of steam until February.
From then on it's all go, with the period from February to April generally being the busiest months of the year for residential property sales.
So auction activity should pick up significantly over the next couple of weeks, providing a more reliable indicator of where the market might be headed this year.
Of the properties that sold at January's auctions, just over half (54%) achieved prices equal to or above their rating valuation (where this could be ascertained).
So not a bad result for what is traditionally the slowest month of the year for auction activity.
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.
The table below shows the January auction results by district.
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