Residential property listings and asking prices drop in Auckland, prices up elsewhere

Property

The number of homes being listed for sale on Realestate.co.nz is well down on a year ago, asking prices dropping in Auckland, rising elsewhere

3rd Feb 16, 9:25am by Greg Ninness

The number of homes being listed for sale on Realestate.co.nz is well down on a year ago and there are big regional variations in asking price trends.

There were 8144 homes newly listed for sale on the specialist property website in January, down 14.6% compared to January last year, while the average asking price was $542,514 which was up 3.7% compared to December but still below its peak of $568,215 set in August.

The Auckland market appears to be subdued compared to the rest of the country with the number of new listings in January down 18.4% compared to a year earlier, with the region's average asking price dropping to $828,629 which was down 2.3% compared to December.

Around the rest of the country vendors appeared more optimistic, with eight regions posting record high asking prices.

Central Otago had the highest average asking price in the country with an all time high of $861,723, although the number of homes newly listed for sale in the region in January was down 35% compared to a year earlier.

Other regions to post record high average asking prices were Bay of Plenty $501,961, Waikato $440,784, Taranaki $373,668, Wellington $489,029, Canterbury $483,233, Coromandel $574,271 and Southland $276,924.

Most regions experienced a significant decline in the number of new listings in January compared to a year ago.

Realestate.co.nz chief executive Brendon Skipper said inventory levels (the total numbers of homes listed for sale on the website divided by the average number of weeks it takes to achieve a sale) was at an all time low of 14.7 weeks in January, compared to the long term average of 34 weeks (see chart below).

Housing inventory

Select chart tabs

Source: realestate.co.nz

Source:

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21 Comments

by Yvil | 3rd Feb 16, 10:34am 1454448842

Greg, I always enjoy your articles, thanks. Above you start by comparing listings for sale in January 2016 with January 2015, great, then you compare average asking price for January 2016 with... December 2015. This in my view is not very helpful because of the seasonal monthly variances. Please compare the same months between current and previous year from now on.
Thanks

by sharetrader | 3rd Feb 16, 10:58am 1454450306

more listings in south auckland than ever before, not sure why

by karlymal | 3rd Feb 16, 11:05am 1454450759

My guess is this is where investors went last to make a quick buck and are now struggling to offload them. They all have the same boring grey paint quick do-up feel about them. As a potential first home buyer I would rather something smaller with less commute and better amenities than live out south and I grew up in South Auckland.

by iconoclast | 3rd Feb 16, 11:20am 1454451641

Define South Auckland

Anyone who is
(a) 65 yo regards SA as Otara, Otahuhu, Papatoetoe
(b) 40 yo regards SA as Manurewa
(c) 25 yo regards SA as Papakura, Pukekohe, Drury

Anyone not resident in Auckland considers anything south of the CBD as South Auckland

by karlymal | 3rd Feb 16, 12:18pm 1454455091

For me personally I don't want to live south of Otara/Otahuhu. When I search for listings under 600k there are plenty available between Papakura through to Manurewa and less so north of that.

by KH | 3rd Feb 16, 12:45pm 1454456730

LoL. The old joke used to be that Aucklanders thought New Zealand stopped at the Bombay Hills. They knew nothing of the other side.
Their newer concept is that New Zealand stops the south end of Epsom. Beyond, 'there be dragons'

by kemistry | 3rd Feb 16, 3:01pm 1454464898

From reading various articles over the last year or so, i have heard that "Central Auckland" is considered to be the old Auckland City Council limits. I'm guesing anything south of that is considered "South Auckland". Still have to see a graphic on where the old Auckland Council city limits were though. ?!?!?

by sadr001 | 3rd Feb 16, 3:15pm 1454465723

Zone A on this map https://at.govt.nz/media/270131/Monthly-Pass-map-A1-May-2013.pdf

by kemistry | 3rd Feb 16, 3:35pm 1454466905

You mean the map i walk past everyday ??!!?! .. Brilliant !! Thanks

by Machiavelli | 3rd Feb 16, 4:09pm 1454468954

When I lived in Mt Eden we used to call it "South-Central".

by sharetrader | 3rd Feb 16, 8:30pm 1454484642

I'm old enough to remember grey lynn and ponsonby before all the yuppies moved in, used to be the south auckland of Auckland central, but back then the culture was good

by christlucas | 3rd Feb 16, 11:24am 1454451843

Just wondered why is it ok for Central Otago to have a higher average selling price than Auckland but the RBNZ does not give it the same treatment as Auckland? ie 30%LVR

by iconoclast | 3rd Feb 16, 11:46am 1454453168

Playground for the wealthy

High net worth people are sophisticated investors and don't need the same protections

by KH | 3rd Feb 16, 12:38pm 1454456292

Central Otago simply does not have the same social problems as Auckland and there is much more money here. Wanaka has the highest net worth of people in the whole country. None of the borrow and hope problem out of the misnamed 'investors' either.
That said the Wakatipu basin (inc Queenstown) should be lumped in with Central Otago, and there is a huge issue in Wakatipu housing a burgeoning population with affordable quality housing.

by Chris-M | 3rd Feb 16, 4:42pm 1454470978

Population of Queenstown approx 28,000, Wanaka 7,000 approx, Auckland 1,400,000. The magnitude is a lot less significant.
Interesting however because the cost of housing in Queenstown makes it very difficult to employ normal family people c.f. itinerant young travellers. In an effort to retain young middle class families, the city fathers have a scheme that makes decent affordable homes available to families at a favourable price.
The way things have gone, I can see that Auckland will end up with the same problem.

by doublegz | 3rd Feb 16, 8:44pm 1454485480

1st sale of the year! Average Mt Eden bungalow with a CV of $1.5m sold for $2.65m at the auction today!

https://www.facebook.com/ketieshasrealestatepage/photos/np.145448228077…

Surely this will headline the Anne Gibson property news on NZ Herald tomorrow :-P

by sharetrader | 3rd Feb 16, 8:22pm 1454484168

most of the workers in queenstown are on working holiday visas in the hospitality trade so are not well paid, there used to be plenty of old cribs for them but they have all been ploughed over to make way for apartments and million dollar homes in which plenty of developers made money. Talk about short sighted without housing for the workers whos going to look after the tourists which is what queenstown is all about

by The best statu… | 3rd Feb 16, 2:10pm 1454461829

South Auckland is the crappy side of town that people try to move out of if they can.

by sharetrader | 3rd Feb 16, 8:24pm 1454484290

LOL could say that about many parts of Auckland,

by ian64 | 3rd Feb 16, 2:53pm 1454464410

not his fault, copy/paste from this: http://unconditional.co.nz/nz-property-report-data/

by zorro15 | 3rd Feb 16, 9:43pm 1454489003

Have just done some calculations on some reinz data looking only at Auckland. I only looked at North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland City and Manukau City, as Rodney is too
far away, I don't know what Metro and Outer Auckland refer too, what I have looked at is peak prices for the above 4 areas versus December 2015 prices.These are are all median prices taken from reinz data.North Shore, peak = September 2015 median = $958k, December 2015median = 910k, change = -5.01%. Waitakere, peak = August 2015 median=741k, December 2015 median = 717.5k, change =-3.17%, Auckland City, peak = May 2015 median=880k, December 2015 median=867k, change =-1.48%. Manukau City, peak = December 2015 760k versus November 2015 =$736 = +1.9%. So based on my calculations the only place that median house prices are increasing is Manukau. Numerous reasons why this might be, Howick versus Otara etcetera. I would say that it is our lovely investors trying to milk their free capital gains income. The problem for these people is that no one is buying. Houses for sale in the area have been increasing rapidly over the last few weeks. What alot of people in Auckland, especially overseas investors fail to understand is that house prices are closely linked to decile ratings. That is why trying to sell a house for $7000,00 + in Favona/Mangere is a waste of time.