Auckland's largest real estate agency sold just over a third of the properties it marketed for sale by auction last week.
Barfoot & Thompson marketed 126 properties for sale by auction last week and had achieved sales on 44 of them (35%) by 5pm the following day.
The rest were mostly passed in, but a few were withdrawn from sale or had their auction date postponed.
At the main auctions, sales rates ranged from 29% at the Shortland Street auction on 27 October, where most of the homes offered were in west Auckland, to 48% at the Shortland St auction on 25 October, where most of the homes offered were in central Auckland suburbs such as Mt Eden, Remuera and Glendowie.
At the North Shore auction the sales rate was 30% and at the Manukau auction it was 38% (see chart below).
The worst result of the week was at the Pukekohe auction where five properties were offered and none was sold.
The cheapest sale of the week was a 2.88 hectare lifestyle block at Waimate North in Northland which fetched $270,000, and the most expensive was a three bedroom villa on a 1090 square metre section in Mt Eden that went for $3.52 million.
You can see the full results on our Residential Auction Results page.
| Date | Location | Sold* | Not sold* | Total | % Sold |
| 23-29 October | On site | 6 | 9 | 15 | 40% |
| 24 October | Manukau | 8 | 13 | 21 | 38% |
| 24 October | Shortland St, CBD. | 1 | 5 | 6 | 17% |
| 25 October | Shortland St, CBD. | 11 | 12 | 23 | 48% |
| 25 October | Pukekohe | 0 | 5 | 5 | Nil |
| 26 October | North Shore | 8 | 19 | 27 | 30% |
| 26 October | Shortland St, CBD. | 4 | 6 | 10 | 40% |
| 26 October | Kerikeri | 1 | 1 | 2 | 50% |
| 27 October | Shortland St, CBD | 5 | 12 | 17 | 29% |
| Total | All locations | 44 | 82 | 126 | 35% |
| *Sold includes properties sold under the hammer or by 5pm the following day. Not sold includes properties that remained unsold after 5pm the day after the auction plus those that had their auction postponed or were withdrawn prior to the commencement of the auction. | |||||
82 Comments
Hi tothepoint,
You write: “Nonetheless, the chattering classes will preach pending doom.“
You started commenting on this website introducing yourself as a potential home buyer, with hopes of house prices falling down so you yourself can get on the property ladder.
Your comment above is very contradictory of your original stance, and would seem to indicate you have a vested interest in talking the property market up DESPITE the current downward trend.
So would you please do us all a favour and get to the point with what it is you are exactly trying to say? Are you a Real Estate agent desperate to keep his job? Or a speculator who made a mistake of buying late into the frenzy and cannot sell his house without making a loss?
RichMuhlach
Hi RichMuhlach,
Like thousands of others, I'd like to buy a house now - but I'm objective and realistic about the housing market and the price levels reached.
I've been saying for more than a year now that there will be no major downward correction in house prices and that is exactly what has transpired. I believe a major downward correction would have a negative impact on the wider economy - and that is also what the new Government has now also said.
I'm not trying to talk up the housing market. I think a period of stability would be far better. You need to properly read what I write! (As in the opening sentence of my post above, "Steady as she goes.")
I can confirm that I am neither a speculator nor a real estate agent - never have been and have no desire to be either in the future.
Hi RichMulach
I don't believe it is wrong for an aspiring home owner to have an opinion on doom and gloomers. At some point people who purchase properties will want to ensure their asset does not erode. There is nothing wrong with that. REA's mostly provide a valuable service and by reading his comments I am positive that TTP would be a good REA (if he is one, which I don't think he is) and he will never be desperate to keep his job.
MTP
That's a good point PointMade, FHBs buying now want their new asset to increase in value. If there was a price crash do the doomsters want to buy cheap after that in order to get a good capital gain themselves once the market springs back up? I suspect they do.
Or do people actually want some sort of Soviet system where you can never make money on houses again once the so called bubble has burst?
One thing to keep in mind with many commenters here is they just want to burn things down even if it meant high unemployment and impoverishment for themselves they would still be happy because the spruikers got their comeuppance. These people have a sort of mental illness. Sad!
I think people want a country where they can afford a house without having to pay it off with over half their pay from two incomes for 30 years. They want a country where people look to productive business activity to be the way people get ahead, not speculative gains on existing assets. A country where home ownership is the norm, and the communities are stronger and more pleasant because of it. Where the housing stock is high quality, and not the cheapest the land lord could get away with.
The path we are going on is a fools paradise, which in the long term increases relative inequality and reduces overall prosperity for the country as a whole.
Or do people actually want some sort of Soviet system where you can never make money on houses again once the so called bubble has burst?
I think that's a bit ridiculous a portrayal. Those who favour affordable housing being about homes for NZers to live in essentially reflect sentiment that has been common across NZ's history up until very recently. And indeed, it's that sentiment that made affordable housing available to you when you started.
You're wrong Retired-Poppy, it's amazing what you can do with paint! Although true, best to paint before the wood is rotten. It disturbs me so much to see houses in need of painting. Paint is an incredible invention.
But you're fundamentally wrong about things in general. To own a house in Auckland and send their kids to school here is a dream for many of the world's people.
Zach, the rest of the world is catching up fast when it comes to lifestyle. Auckland attractiveness is that it has for some time been a one way market. We all know markets can and do go backwards. Auckland can easily lose its allure as we enter a the biggest property bust in this country's history. It's all been built with money that is not ours, the tide can easily go out like it did in 1890. If your sitting in the "this time its different" or some other utopia camp, may I suggest that if those who witnessed what what went down in 1890 were in power today, we wouldn't be in this eeerily similar prediciment in the first place: https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/04/david-murray-warns-of-1890s-ho…
Absolutely Zachary - and thanks for your helpful analysis and commentary.
I think Auckland is a great city with a massive future.
I'd love to live in one of it's inner-city suburbs - Ponsonby, Freemans Bay and St Mary's Bay are amazing communities and hugely sought-after. Transport/travel hassles are minimal.
The new Government's plans for commuter light-rail etc will further add to Auckland's appeal.
It's regional development policy also seems sensible to me. Not everyone can (or should) live in Wellington or Auckland. Balanced development will better allow all NZers to reap the benefits of economic growth. But the Government needs to do it in a fiscally responsible way...... and, alas, some of the early signs aren't too convincing.
"Auckland has a massive future "...
Auckland is a city.
Cities are energy intensive consumption sinks - they require constant inputs of colossal amounts of energy.
Unless the powers that be can keep the debt ponzi rolling, energy will stop rolling in.
Yet all planners look ahead using a rear view mirror.
Id suggest Auckland's future will be anything but massive.
ham n eggs, nah it's all good mate, we're going to be running on gas for a long time:
I did the sales/RV comparisons for all properties that sold on 26 October. 22 properties with reliable data. I even included a couple of possibly problematic ones.
Houses on that day sold for 28.043M and had an RV of 18.895M giving a sales over RV value of 48.41%
This is the fourth result in a row in high forties. If this "analysis" was pointless due to too small a sample size we would see wildly varying results but we don't. That's essentially what critics of my posting this data should base their criticism on, "your sample is too small so your results will be all over the place and meaningless". It is consistent.
Also keep in mind this is drawn from sales of only a few days ago. It is all I have to go on when I want to see the LATEST data.
Also CoreLogic themselves use comparison to RV as a measure.
CONCLUSION: I'm calling an improved percentage price increase for the year for Auckland once October's results are collated. Market is reasonably warm.
Thanks Zach for putting in the effort. As you say prices compared to existing RVs have held for a few months. Volumes are down, Auckland sales in October/ November will be historically low,(not in itself a bad change )listings for sale have increased, listings for rent have held .
"CoreLogic themselves use comparison to RV as a measure."
Yes.
They also use around 8-10,000 sales per month to construct it.
Your results are consistent for a very select few types of properties.
Any schoolboy learns that such conclusions reek of sample selection bias.
The people that critisise your method aren't the ones who look stupid, ZS. That crown lies comfortably on your head.
Apply the results to any out of sample data and see how well it is at predicting prices.
The properties are typical of the Auckland market. Again you protest too much about this. It really isn't an unforgivable breach of whatever and I think it gives recent property buyers a bit of comfort. It really is quite interesting. Only takes a few minutes. It is absolutely on topic for the thread. Interest.co.nz posts these results, I study them. I report back...sheesh.
Properties that are well presented sell well I've noticed from looking carefully at these sales.
Nothing comes close to a steal for a buyer yet - something I'm looking out for.
Not really. If I remove the 4.1M as it is problematic in your view, so I remove my two problematic other properties (fair's fair) I get 52.1% over RV. Remove the very high and remove the very low and get similar result. What's the point of that? Even just removing the mansion still results in over 46% above RV.
Obviously the more properties the better but as I have already stated, nymad, this is all I have to go on presently. If you add up my last four reports for the month it is well over a hundred properties which is a fair representation I think.
Thanks for proving my point. Your variance bias is huge.
You remove one property and it influences the result by ~11-12%.
Property is far too differentiated to rely on such small samples.
100 in a month is not at all adequate.
Do you want some books to read?
I can recommend (quite) a few.
More like 5% either side of the central figure. It's small enough of a variance for me to find it useful. You can't take out the properties selectively like this. I run the figures on all properties sold on that day. It's important to include the spectacular ones with the less spectacular ones for it to be meaningful. The mansion is not that spectacular at 61% over RV. Another was only 2% above RV. They are balancing each other out. I actually think I am understating the results. Think of it as dancing Wu Li masters.
Again it is only indicative, not calculations to land a probe on Mars and surely comforting for someone that has recently bought. If it was showing in the 20-30% area overall over several reports it would be a worry.
"More like 5% either side of the central figure."
No, ZS.
(52.1-46)/52.1 = 0.117.
Omission of one observation resulted in your results varying by 11.7%.
"It's important to include the spectacular ones with the less spectacular ones for it to be meaningful."
No it's not.
In any rigorous statistical analysis, it really, really isn't wise to use outliers.
See what the Gauss-Markov theorem says about exactly that.
Hi nymad,
You write above, "Your results are consistent for a very select few types of properties."
Wrong! There are, in fact, large numbers of houses in the city suburbs of both Auckland and Wellington (and elsewhere) that show exactly the trend that Zachary has illuminated.
You ought to acquaint yourself with the market.
Fact; the number of property listings has dramatically increased in the last few weeks. Auckland is now up to 10,625 listings on TradeMe.
That's likely to increase again once the new local council CV property ratings are released in the next few weeks. I really don't see how prices can remain high once the market is flooded with unsold properties. Venders are going to have to be more realistic on their prices.
If you take a look at Homes.co.nz, you'll see that prices for Auckland have dropped at least - $100k in the last few months.
No panic. Impossible. The ban is for foreign buyers and they’ve been gone for over 6months . Ether been stopped or don’t have access to money anymore and Auckland house prices are still very high and what idiot would buy in a market that’s going down anyway. Might have happened if Auckland had 2011 prices to pick up a bargain if they could. All over
Yes there is a panic. Here're the properties that have just been sold in the last 10 days or so...
1) 10 Homai St, Remuera - Sold (suspect > $3M)
2) 5 Entrican Ave, Remuera - Sold (suspect > $4M)
3) 16 Martin Ave, Remuera - Sold (suspect > $3.5M)
4) 53 Orakei Rd, Remuera - Sold (suspect >$2M)
5) 16 Leys Cres, Remuera - Sold (suspect >$2.5M)
6) 68 Clonbern Rd, Remuera - Sold (suspect >$3M)
7) 22c Standen Ave, Remuera - Sold (suspect >$3.5M)
8) 15 Rangitoto Ave, Remuera - Sold (suspect >$3M)
Averageman, here is a very typical sale from last week that is much more interesting. Particularly interesting for me as I own something very similar. My retirement home in beautiful West Auckland.
https://www.barfoot.co.nz/604541
720K. None too flash. Has some good features, stand alone, easy maintenance and its own driveway. A good buy in an up and coming area for a FHB who has worked hard.
720K for a 70 square metre property in West Auckland? I'd be stoked if I was the seller to get the offloaded and get the cash in the bank. I'm of the opinion that properties like that shot up WAY beyond what they should have. At the end of the day that's a lot of cash for not a lot of house.
They are the same person + Ted Stanton. Google "dissociative or multiple personality disorder (DID)"; it's perhaps a complication of having an unhealthy fetish with residential property. The Three Faces of Eve is a bit more entertaining and without the tedium of a property brag.
We are getting sales on a downward market. And those sales are very few. It’s now a buyers market. Sales can’t keep up with listings by a long way. The drivers of the market going up $20000 a month are completely gone and have been since national were in . There’s plenty of facts about that. And now labour are driving it home so these sorts of bubbles never happen again. The buyers in the market today are mainly only FHBers and they’re only about 20% of the buyers of the last 2 years. The nz housing market WILL go down. It’s impossible for that not to happen. IMPOSSIBLE. And the biggest problem in the likelihood of how low the market goes down. 2008 was only a little because housing was only half of what they are today and 2008s boom was locally driven. The 20% of locals that might buy from now are the sort of buyers that were pushed out of the market way back in 2011. Very scary. This market is going down and no one can stop it and behind closed doors labour , peters and the RB are the complete opposite to national are would be happy if nz house prices dropped to more affordable levels. But of course that could never say that publicly but can easily explain the vaults and lies of national why the market is dropping with miles of proof the market started dropping because they got in. One good one will be foreign buyers were a bigger driver that national made out with there lies and the China’s government mostly ended that not labour. There many more, the RB not stopping it etc etc. FHBers wait. It’s your time .
Yep, what isn't selling is more interesting than what is selling in the current conditions. A year ago you could slap a for sale sign on a borer ridden doghouse and have people throwing money at you.. i strongly suspect those times are long gone. (I hope they are).
"I'd like to see the return of modest gains", finally we hear something with a ring of truth.
Many people would like to see a return to modest gains in property prices, and if you are patient willing to wait out the current market situation you will most likely see it. It may take some time however.
Today the average price in Auckland is not economically sustainable, too much debt at historically low rates, too much risk of price falls, too little wage growth, too many potential industrial disruptors which could impact employment rates, too much risk of international interest rate rise.
Ps. Theres only one major principle to the speed and direction of a market. Supply and demand. The last few years the demand has been so great house prices have gone up over $20000 a month. We all know why. The supply at the same time was ok with plenty willing to sell. THATs OVER NOW. Listing are climbing and sales are dropping. FHBers don’t listen to the obvious 4 or 6 on here. A few sales here and there specially in more expensive areas is NOT the point to be made that should interest you. I’m talking about the 95% of the market that concerns 95% of the people. YOU. You could easily get wiped out. Specially if you only have 20% deposit . Put it this way to. Even if all the FHBers out there were to start buying that’s only about 20% demand of recent years. Simply the demand over recent years has been mind boggling and can only drop
Hi O4 normal,
Your comments above are trite - misleading and deceptive.
One of the reasons why sales are low is that plenty of property owners/investors won't sell. This explains the dire shortage of house listings in various areas - such as the city suburbs of both Auckland and Wellington (and sizeable chunks of provincial cities).
There are plenty of people who don't need to sell - and certainly won't do so in a soft market! This works as an automatic stabilising device, going some way to explaining why the market has steadfastly refused to take a dive - despite the desperate/concerted efforts of people like yourself , CJ099, nymad (and various others here) to talk it down.
The market is likely to plateau around its current level for some time (which I think is not a bad thing at all) before resuming its historical growth trajectory.
"One of the reasons why sales are low is that plenty of property owners/investors won't sell".
Perhaps they might soon...when faced with zero cap gain, losses ring fenced, increased rates, insurances, building wofs, tenancy protection policy's and the like.
How long can dad put up with mum harping on about the household cash shortage due to his specuvestments? This is the reality out there for many of the johnny come lately's. The question is..how many out there in this boat?
Ps again for the stupid that don’t understand and can’t read a market. 1 . A few high end sales is meaningless. 2. There’s mostly 2 ways we get good high end sales. First we open the country up to LARGER money than the market is used too. Or second sales and wages starting right down to the lowest in a area improve giving people the chance to better themselves all the way up to the most expensive. The big money is mostly gone and can only get worse. I REALLY hope this is clear now so we stop this nonsense about a few sales here and there that have probably taken a cut to get a sale anyway. Pointless information. If these RE bulls on here simply said hey there’s STILL some sales but they’re taking a bit less maybe their comments would be worthy . In the end people will start selling faster and faster as time goes by , most need to or others will. Normal market stuff. No brainer
04 normal - this property pyramid is only sustainable with an ongoing supply of new money. Like you said, the big money has finished. Times are approaching whereas it will soon flow the other way - then see what happens. The tide will go out on those swimming naked.
Yes Retired-Poppy. Its over and that’s that’s national started this stupidity and labour and the nz people will end it. Only thing it’s impossible to end this boom by the market simply going flat. Impossible. The nz buyers are way back in 2011 . We go down. And quite likely labour know it
No one wants to take a loss, so agree, why sell if you don't have to, its a bit of a Mexican standoff.
The key factor is things that make you have to sell, and its clear that there is real potential for the market to keep ratcheting up reasons to force a sale. All it will take is a few owners to hit their sell point at lower prices, thus reinforcing expectations of lower prices/valuations. Just the same as a few high sales reinforce higher price. The banks will have no choice but to review capital requirements in future lending reviews. Time will show over the next year or three.
Also quite possible for Chinese tax payers wanting tax free education and healthcare in NZ to have a bit of a rush before the door is closed. Viewed a house last week and plenty of Chinese in view.
Those without patience will continue to export themselves to other regional centers, or Australia. Lucky us in Alk, having our best and brightest continuing to be forced out of the region because of the house price mess of the last govt.
Boomers with negatively geared rentals, and no likely hood of capital gains will get themselves into a pickle when they want to retire.
No one want to spend their NZ super/retirement saving propping up an 'investment' that's loosing value. The smart will sell up while they have positive equity. The stubborn will hold on as long as their cashflow/bank allows it
Sorry Averageman but it might look like a Mexican stand off but that won’t last long because people sell houses for many reasons and I’m not totally sure of the figures but I think the total houses sold in a year out of all the housing stock is very low . 2 or 3% ?. So in a 4 year boom most of the people in a that boom DIDNT play the housing market. Because they didn’t play the market in that period they payed pre 2011 and earlier. Even earlier than the 2002 boom. It’s these people that in time will sell and CAN meet the market easily. Also in time because this market will go down for all the reasons national created. Their might be few people selling but people move , die, millions of reasons will sell and demand will be low anyway. If sellers that brought over the last few years think they can sit and wait and all will be ok. I’d rethink that plan because the buyers simply aren’t there in volume or financially and 90% maybe a bit less payed very little and will come on the market when they’re ready
This market will be underpinned by FHB once all the Chinese money has been used up through on selling by existing owners. Look at the change in share by borrower type over the last few months.
Eventually this market will require new money to sustain it, and can only come from FHB in future.
If the property specuvultures on this site were REALLY confident that our housing market is safe, then they would not need to spend so much effort trying to talk it up. Sadly they are filling too many of these threads with drivel making it much harder to access the rarer gems of wisdom here.
Gradually the Auckland CBD paper millionaires will come to their senses much like the paper millionaire Canadians. :)
Better Dwelling: The Gap Between Canadian Real Estate Prices and Homeowner Expectations Is Shrinking
https://betterdwelling.com/the-gap-between-canadian-real-estate-prices-…
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