Auckland's largest real estate agency had a cracker of a month in March, with sales numbers and selling prices both up strongly.
Barfoot & Thompson sold 1262 residential properties in March, up 4% compared to March last year.
That was the most sales the agency has made in any month of the year since March 2021, which was at the height of the last property boom.
The average and median selling prices also recovered strongly after unexpectedly slumping in February.
Barfoot's average selling price was $1,176,572 in March, the highest it has been since November last year, and up 16% compared compared to February this year.
The median selling price was $1,030,000 in March, the highest it has been since March 2024, and up 13.9% from February this year.
Barfoot & Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson said a feature of March was the high number of sales in the $2 million-plus price bracket, with 103 sales, the first time it has been above 100 since March 2022.
"While March's sales are not signalling an end to the Auckland property market's two year static performance, it underlines that even in challenging economic times there is confidence in the medium term future of the market," Thompson said.
One of the challenges the agency will have to deal with is the high level of stock for sale it is carrying.
Barfoot's bumper sales in March were achieved even though new listings were down by 7% compared to February and marginally lower (-0.4%) compared to March last year.
However, even with a lower level of listings and higher sales in March, the total number of properties Barfoots had available for sale at the end of March increased to 6307. That's up 2.4% compared to February, and is the most residential properties the agency has had available for sale in any month of the year since March 2009.
Such high stock levels could present particular challenges as the market starts to cool heading into the autumn/winter season.
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21 Comments
Barfoot's average selling price was $1,176,572 in March, the highest it has been since November last year, and up 16% compared compared to February this year.
This is encouraging for the Auckland market.
Indeed. Several very pricy sales in Mar to foreign money after the ban was lifted. Would be super interesting to see the impact of such sales removed to allow a true "NZ" market stat
HPI will be out soon and show a better picture.
Hasn't the foreign buyer ban been lifted only for houses over $ 5 million ?
Yes. Thus the ability to sway stats.
Would be interesting to see the sales numbers and price trends broken down across the range of price brackets and relationship to RV.
My gut feeling is that the special visa conditions have provided welcome relief to sellers of high end properties. I expect that is a small proportion of properties but has potential to skew average and median value stats, given the visa changes have only been in place a short time.
The next round of RV updates downward are just around the corner!
Yeh maybe it has a bit of an effect at the really high end, but it only applies to $5m+ places so its gonna be a pretty small part of the market.
Might nudge the average a bit, but if the middle price is moving too, and its also the busiest March in five years, it sorta points to something bigger going on.
Sometimes the simpler explanation is just that activity has picked up.
Hmmm I guess these articles are are the awkward ones, not weak enough to confirm a crash, not strong enough to call a boom.
So just looks like a market that came off the top and is now...doing market things.
This sucka is going down deeper.....and not surfacing again.......like the ill fated Kursk.
Its crash was apparent in 2023.
Like any objectively measured asset, its produced income is its natural support. The net income is abysmal and dropping by every measure.
Many were indeed massed hoodwinked, into the belief, that the housing market would walk on water forever.....as it surely did, until epic bubbletop late 2021.
It was only bested by the madness of Tulipmania.
Then the new epoch of forever resurgent inflation spikes (staggering higher, input costs of everything) coupled with forever increases in debt servicing - torpedoed the most overbought asset in NZ history, tearing housing apart midship.
Many are still living the past paradigm......to their now stark and obvious financial peril.
Only until DTIs of 3 or 4x become common, this vessel sinks, without lifeline or trace.
The property gamblers have all had the certain, Tulipesk warnings, from 6 years ago!!!
Kursk, tulipmania, “never surfacing again”...so we’ve gone from a flat couple of years to full naval disaster pretty rapidly 😂
Quite a few steps missing between “sideways market” and “total annihilation”
Genuinely curious tho, so what actually gets us from here to DTI 3–4x without something pretty major breaking along the way?
Its simply a return to the longterm historical, debt supporting, norm.
Especially so now, as Ddddebt gets increasingly more expensive, post 2021 world.
Check the price history and then the sprouting of the NZ housing Tulip bulb, from year 2000.......
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QNZR628BIS
So now we’ve gone from submarines to tulips to FRED charts...
Yeh I get the chart, but jumping from that to “back to the norm” seems like a pretty big reach. A lots changed over the last 25 years.
Genuinely tho, what actually gets DTIs back to 3–4x from here without something giving way first?
Understand that you may have been tricked into loading up, at a DTI over 4x......but that's the scurrilous FIRE industry for you.... and our countries addiction to DDDeebt.
This gamblers addiction, needs this treatment being meted out currently.
What get the market to correct, even deeper than it already has??? (the largest market crash, since the 1970s)
It's happening right now, naturally.
Don't you hear the air hissing constantly, from the balloon?
4 to 6x more years of balloon deflation and we are there.
The crash has already hacked -30% off real values, so we are well into a lower and lower trend. Let it be your friend.
Yeh I get the balloon analogy, but thats just describing it, not explaining it.
DTIs getting back to 3–4x needs a mechanism like, incomes surge, prices fall a lot more, or credit tightens hard
Which of those is actually doing the work over the next 4–6 years? Or is it just a vibe?
There is no income surge coming anytime. Your other two, are most likely.
Right, so falling prices and tighter credit then
So thats basically saying it only gets to 3–4x via a pretty rough economic backdrop, not just housing “naturally” drifting there.
Bit of a shift from the earlier “just returning to normal” take...now it needs a full-blown downturn to get there.
Golly if this little piece of vested interest market propaganda is not enough to compel people to list their property with the great and fantastic Barfoot and Thompson, then nothing is. How do they do it when every indicator is saying the exact opposite.?
What? Calling it propaganda doesnt really change the fact they sold 1200 odd properties at those prices.
Sure you can disagree with the outlook, but the transactions still happened.
What are these "every indicator" ?
What are these "every indicator" ?
"every indicator" Which are those ?
https://www.tonyalexander.nz/wp-content/uploads/Tonys-View-2-April-2026…
Maybe tony does not talk to Barfoot agents
A one-off bounce?
Yeh could be, although its been called “one-off” for a while now
Sooner or later it just becomes the market doing its thing
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