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Barfoot & Thompson's August sales down with prices largely flat, as 'solid buyer's market' continues

Property / news
Barfoot & Thompson's August sales down with prices largely flat, as 'solid buyer's market' continues
Barfoot & Thompson sign

Auckland's largest real estate agency ended winter on a quiet note, with sales down and prices flat.

Barfoot & Thompson sold 787 residential properties in August, down 6.9% compared to July, and 11.5% lower than August last year. That was Barfoot's lowest number of sales in the month of August since 2022.

New listings in August were also lower. The agency received 1456 new listings during the month, down 6.1% from July and down 10.2% compared to August last year.

Barfoot's total stock of residential properties for sale remained elevated, but flattened out in August, with 5870 properties on its books at the end of the month, almost unchanged from 5873 at the end of August last year.

Selling prices were also largely flat. Barfoot's average selling price was $1,098,487 in August. That was down $3982 (-0.4%) compared to July, but up $17,455 (1.6%) from August last year.

The median selling price was $955,000 in August, up $10,000 (1.1%) from July, and up $5000 (0.5%) from August last year.

Barfoot & Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson said there were signs the Auckland market may be at a "tipping point."

"Buyers are there and interested but are yet to be convinced that the upward price cycle is about to commence," Thompson said.

"They are still waiting for confirmation the return of rising prices is about to get underway," he said.

"It remains a solid buyer's market, but there are signs that prices are hardening," he said.

Barfoot Auckland

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22 Comments

Cut and paste from a Reddit thread a couple of weeks ago 


need advice on minimizing losses

bought investment property in north shore quite overvalued in 2022 for 1.6m, still 700k outstanding mortgage, fixed interest rate at 4.5% till end of 2027, rental income $700pw, land size is good 600sqm but not big enough for developers to come knocking when economy is not doing well, i think the max we can get is maybe 1.4m in today’s market


 

i am also investing in stocks so thinking whether to sell the house and use the equity to buy US stocks during the next crash (like tariffs in 2024 or iran war 2025) to make back what i’ve lost.. i have much more conviction in value of AI than nz property at this point


 

any suggestions from experienced investors?


“can’t go wrong with property clearly didn’t pan out the way it was promised” 
 

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7

Just wow! First piece of advice should be stop reading Facebook Property Investment pages and listening to a certain radio host and start researching what is going on in the 'real' world!   

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14

Sorry to hear you bought at the top Rampart, my advice is to sell your stocks and pay off the mortgage when up for renewal.

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Haha I bought back in 2016. Definitely doubled my money.

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It wasn't Rampart that bought the top - it was some person on Reddit.

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6

Sure...

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Buyers waiting.... for what... 

To see what the cost of debt brings. To see what the US Bond market does with the Trillon's of US debt needing role over. To see what new property taxes arrive, or not, post election. If the land tax arrives in any form, there will be a rush for the exits in specudebt land. 

Why would you not wait for those events to be more transparent in 2027-28?

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8

To see if Labour takes away interest deductibility again.

No investor will move until after Nov and then it may be a stampede

If you think it's a buyers market now, just wait til thats reintroduced.

 

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12

Exactly - funny how they phrase it that buyers are waiting to see if prices start going up as opposed to buyers potentially waiting for prices to drop further to avoid over paying and losing their low equity deposit in a falling market. 

My personal opinion is that buyers are more likely than not, going to have to wait until the 2030's before any meaningful prices rises are to be found in this market (potentially even the 2040's depending upon how things play out with inflation). As opposed to the narrative that is constantly the theme among the RE groupies, who always think green shoots are arriving tomorrow. I guess 30 years of conditioning, takes more than just a few years of falling or flat prices to undo a reinforced mental paradigm (prices always go up and the best time to buy property was yesterday). Confirmation bias can be great, until it isn't. 

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8

Agree, having said that it is the Managing Director of a RE Company making these statements, so no surprises there. IMO the thought of house prices falling meaning more and more young kiwis may actually have an opportunity to not only buy a home, but afford to live with a reasonable standard of living as well, is one of the more 'good news' stories of the time.

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9

Double edge sword - falling prices mean more opportunities for future buyers, but also a great deal of financial stress/strain/difficulties for those who have paid too much for their properties the past 5 years. 

My view is we should never have allowed prices to do what they did in the late 2010's - early 2020s because of the pain it was going to hurt one group or another in the future - at the time I was called a 'doom gloom merchant' for taking such a view by the RE groupies. I guess people only learn by painful experience, instead of listening to prudent advice. 

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falling prices mean more opportunities for future buyers, but also a great deal of financial stress/strain/difficulties for those who have paid too much for their properties the past 5 years. 

Hmmm. It's my thesis that falling house prices are bad for "everyone", not just for recent buyers and those who want to buy houses in the near future. But my ideas have me stranded on an island. No matter if I call for help, nobody can hear me. Tamatha Paul might even go past me in her brand new speedboat (hip hop booming from the sound system) completely oblivious that I'm there.

We should steer clear of siloed thinking on these issues. The Ponzi has been Aotearoa's economic foundation. There seems to be an idea that a year or two of slow growth will solve everything and then things go back to "normal." The complacency is disturbing.

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FOGPF    as in Proper

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1

Your thesis also seems fairly well siloed on this - ponzi 'good' for economy, falling prices = bad for everyone. Obviously this could be true for many, but not for all. 

The thesis looks like a partially burnt pot calling a kettle black .

(I do agree with you that falling house prices will cause difficulty for the economy - but the wisdom of the proverbs says that fools must suffer from their folly - ie we should have avoided this position entirely - and the fools are going to cause most to suffer - and the fools are those who were up to just recently, calling anyone who could see the danger ahead 'doom gloom merchants'). 

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Your thesis also seems fairly well siloed on this - ponzi 'good' for economy, falling prices = bad for everyone.

It's my thesis, but pointing out that Ponzinomics has broad positive economic impacts on the way up, but broad negative impacts for everyone when disrupted is not "support for Ponzinomics". It's more a case of understanding that we reap what we sow and isolating the Ponzi from the broader economy is the wrong position to take.

And the idea that boom / busts are a fundamental part of the economic cycle doesn't do anything to address the underlying issues and change the reality. 

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Well you could put that another way in that when property was a path to riches, those who climbed in didn't care too much about the FHB trying to buy their first home to raise a family??? 

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Your comment is part of the siloed thinking. It's not lack of empathy on my part.

  • If the Ponzi collapsed (hypothetical), do you honestly believe there will be no impact on the wider economy and the ability of people to stump up for mortgages? 
  • While the Ponzi was running on all cylinders, do you not think this had a positive impact on income growth in the wider economy? Do you think the positive by-product would still have existed without the Ponzi?

Those two questions are important. People need to think more laterally about trade-offs. 

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But its like getting drunk from a poisoned chalace (the positive benefits you mention of the 'ponzi').

"Oh yes please, let me eagerly drink from this poisoned chalace as I like to drink and to feel drunk, and who cares about the long term consequences!"

Anyone rational would say "despite the temptation, I refuse to drink from your poisoned chalace as I prefer long term survival over short term gain from drinking from your beautiful but dangerous looking chalace".

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That was the hidden meaning. 

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So the real estate agents are implying the house prices are about to go up, yet the buyers are not convinced.

I'm with the house buyers.  And the RE people are behaving as always.

 

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8

Unless we get more productive per person and the economy starts doing real and useful things again, how is it rational to expect house prices will rise?

That is unless we get a government that contrives to prop up consumption spending like houses with immigration or artificially cheap money - and those come with all sorts of much bigger problems than the end of an unreal housing market that's done us a lot of social and economic damage.

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