A third of homes sell at latest Barfoot & Thompson auctions

Property

Sales rates at Barfoot & Thompson's latest auctions ranged from 17% at the Manukau auction to 67% in Whangarei

9th May 17, 2:23pm by Greg Ninness

Barfoot & Thompson marketed 101 residential properties for sale by auction last week and sold 33 of them either under the hammer by by 5pm the following day, giving an overall sales clearance rate of 33%.

Sales rates varied considerably between auctions, with the highest success rate of 67% at the Whangarei auction and the lowest of 17% at the Manukau auction.

At the North Shore auction a 28% sales rate was achieved and in the company's Shortland street auction rooms the sales rates ranged form 27% to 54% (see table below for all auctions).

The highest sales price of the week was $1.465 million for a property at Hillcrest on the North Shore and the lowest was $375,000 for a Whangarei property.

The results from all of Barfoot's auctions last week, with details of individual properties and the prices achieved on those that sold, are available on our Auction Results page.

**Barfoot & Thompson Auction Results: Week ending 5 May 2017**
Venue	Sold*	Not sold*	Total
On site	2	5	7
Manukau, 2 May 2017	5	24	29
Shortland St, 2 May 2017	7	6	13
Whangarei, 3 May 2017	4	2	6
Shortland St, 3 May 2017	4	6	10
North Shore, 4 May 2017	5	13	18
Shortland St, 4 May 2017	3	4	7
Shortland St, 5 May 2017	3	8	11
Total	33	68	101
*Sold includes properties sold under the hammer or by 5pm the day after the auction. Not sold includes properties remaining unsold by 5pm the day after the auction, and those that were withdrawn from sale or had their auction date postponed.

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18 Comments

by Boatman | 9th May 17, 3:36pm 1494301016

According to Forbes Magazine ( Article 7 May by Wade Shepard) some Chinese cities require a 60% deposit by persons wanting to buy a second property as an investment .

Now that requirement will stop people speculating with property if ever you saw one

You have got to hand it to China , they really know how to manage their economy through extreme measures

by Peri | 9th May 17, 5:03pm 1494306226

Singapore is tougher, requiring up to 80% deposit if holding multiple properties, and investors cannot use equity in other properties, 25% of deposit must be cash.
RBNZ is still playing around, hardly serious.

by J.C. | 9th May 17, 6:10pm 1494310239

You have got to hand it to China , they really know how to manage their economy through extreme measures

Really? The country where shadow banking operates on a scale unseen in human history?

by tothepoint - d… | 9th May 17, 3:51pm 1494301905

"Now that requirement will stop people speculating with property if ever you saw one."

It might slow down the speculators - but it won't have much impact on the true investors.

by gingerninja | 9th May 17, 4:24pm 1494303858

He's not talking about "true investors". He specifically refers to speculation. Speculation is far more toxic to a market than genuine investor behaviour.

by tothepoint - d… | 9th May 17, 4:27pm 1494304073

"He's not talking about "true investors". He specifically refers to speculation. Speculation is far more toxic to a market than genuine investor behaviour."

I agree.

by Cowpat | 9th May 17, 5:21pm 1494307265

Good to see banks giving interest only loans a whack in Australia.

by Hardly | 9th May 17, 7:21pm 1494314498

24 properties unsold in manukau, the sign of a healthy property market.

by Rob | 10th May 17, 12:51am 1494334304

Would be really useful to see a graph over time.

by CJ099 | 10th May 17, 9:46am 1494366391

Certainly not a sign of a healthy property market. Looking at the latest auction results for Auckland prices are very much starting to erode. Be interesting to see how quickly we're going to hit the -20% mark. Will it before or after the election?

by Crazy Horse | 10th May 17, 2:04pm 1494381883

.....always amazes me how many people are STILL absolutely convinced that property is a "sure fire" one way bet, on values always steadily going up....especially in Auckland.

Brother lives overseas and meets quite a few Kiwis travelling...... they all sing the same tune as above, with rose coloured glasses, while behaving like John Key sycophants, smiling and waving, mincing down the catwalk, thinking their property's value is "bullet proof" ..... delusional.

by Independent_Observer | 10th May 17, 2:21pm 1494382902

Sure indication of bad times ahead. I've met up with a number of people recently who are the same (they own multiple properties in the Auckland region). They're still selling the spin that houses prices are on the rise, but they are looking more and more nervoius now as they do so - and looking very uncomfortable while they try and sell the spin to you.

by notaneconomist | 10th May 17, 3:30pm 1494387023

To make those comments IA you must be absolutely certain that supply is not the issue but rather some other force.......what if you are wrong and the bad times ahead are for those who struggle even more to get on the housing ladder? Surely it is better to encourge people to do something for themselves rather than discourage them from having a go? If any of my kids had come onto interest.co.nz and took up the negative comments on housing and run with them they would never have got their own roofs over their own head.

Not one political party is going to remove the real impediments to supply restrictions or the inflated costs that make up housing. There are far too many Governemnt Agencies who are dependent upon housing for a chunk of their income and they will all be advising the Ministers of the special need for their services as being a community necessity for such is the life of a socialist!

by Independent_Observer | 10th May 17, 3:49pm 1494388152

We have irrationality in the market - so you could argue whether the laws of supply and demand have any basis in this argument at all.

Ireland had 'supply' issues as well before their housing market crashed....(Could someone make a Tui sign out of this please?)

by Independent_Observer | 10th May 17, 4:05pm 1494389102

notaneconomist - if you read a few of Robert Shillers books on bubbles/market irrationality/human psychology I think you might be more concerned about the position we find ourselves in. We have all the classic signs that things aren't going to be so good in the future - because of what we've done the last 15-20 years. Our housing market is overdone. Based on P/E alone - at best I'd expect poor returns from the NZ housing market over the coming years/decade. Unless of course we can somehow pump more cheap credit into the market....but I don't think that is possible. Where does it come from?

by Upside | 10th May 17, 2:20pm 1494382826

Crazy Horse...Depends why they are invested I guess. Have a look at the REINZ figures over the past 20 years. The long trend is up with boom and bust cycles along the way. As to what will happen tomorrow it's anyones guess, so really speculating and hoping things go up is not what I would consider investing in property. Trying to make a quick buck and timing the market is not investing. Sure fire investors make sure they get a return on their money (own or borrowed) straight off the bat no matter if the market is up or down. Not everyone is invested in property for capital gains, that's just assumption based on what the general public consider investing to be, for a capital gain return. Usually real Investors make a consistent return on their money, so if they are buying a house it may still be attractive depending on the return. The general public is fixated on the idea that property is all about capital gain, which can be a losers game if your trying to time the market.

by WMC | 10th May 17, 2:57pm 1494385035

New poster here - be gentle :)

I live in SE Auckland, and have been watching it go up..and now very much teeter on the edge of the precipice. I've been to plenty of open homes and auctions in my area over the last 6 months, and it's definitely concerning (or positive depending on your agenda).

Agents are telling me it's actually picking up again would you believe..and watching the open homes, there certainly appears to be some foot traffic (~1/3rd of 2 years ago). The issue I see is that they're all conditional buyers, needing to sell the existing house they own. Appears to be very few new entrants to market outside of the FHB group (and presumably migrants that owned property overseas); very few cash buyers with ability to move on the "motivated sellers". The speculators are all at the regional trough..and even that seems to be nearing peak now in places like Waikato/BOP.

I don't see an outright collapse in major city prices, but something between 10-20% seems feasible. The sharks will come back again no doubt. The regions on the other hand..after the gloss wears off, people realise there are still no jobs there. It's taken 10 years for regions to recover to the last pre-GFC peak..will we see something similar again?

by bob atkinson | 11th May 17, 7:57am 1494446245

If someone gave me a pot of money investing in Auckland property would not be high on my priority. But assuming you are buying for whatever reason it is possible to minimise risks. Lets for the sake of this argument assume a sudden drop by 25% (ref TOP party attains power in next election) then after the panic and the worst of the pain and the dust settles some properties will have lost 50% and some only 10%.
I have no figures but a mild property recession did occur about 10 years ago - houses in Birkdale (cheapest suburb in the North but convenient location and built before leaky homes) remained static for a few years but I met home owners in Browns Bay and Helensville who had modest losses.