Sales rates ranged from 9% to 40% at Barfoot & Thompson's main auctions last week

So...that went well.

30%.. it is the new 90%.

Another dismal result.

Auction houses resembling a morgue compared top the hive of activity a couple of years ago.

I wonder if ghostbusters can help...

Seems like the way to guaranteed auction success lately is to hold it at the high court with a bank manager watching.

The good news is that mortgagee sales are getting 100% clearance

Peter Barfoots commentary 03-May "Signs Auckland's housing hibernation is coming to an end". TTP, this must mean he recognises that your oscillation faze has now ended. No doubt soon he will report that your "small price falls" are now also occurring.

Auctions are quote "so yesterday" and whatever does sell afterwards by negotiation is priced quite different to the vendors original expectations........

I assume they count the sales negotiated with the highest bidder after the auction closes - as being successfully sold at auction? We bought one like that recently in the Hutt Valley at a price that was (according to the agent) $40K lower than the vendor's expectation (and I assume the auction reserve). I'm not sure it was a successful auction from the vendor's perspective.

I think that auctions being the favoured way to market a property will slowly fade, and we'll head back to a lot more price marketing and sales with offers conditional on the sale of another property.

Glancing through the sale prices and comparing them to Rateable Value shows some significant discounts. Certainly some about RV, but a majority under and some as much at $100k under. I think, combined with the low success rate, it suggests more caution than a couple of months ago.

A counter-cyclical strategy suggests buying when the market is slow.......

Thus, it's a good time to buy now - before the next upswing.

TTP

I remember this TV show where they did these auction things for houses and they didn't get quite as much money as they thought they would and everyone looked shocked but I think they said it was a slow week.

FHBs should note.
Auctions are the best way of determining price when there is price uncertainty as auctions have considerable additional costs for vendors.
It is worthwhile for vendors to go to auction and accept the additional costs because either the market is a booming with lots of competing buyers and shortage of houses, or the market is in decline and there is a need to sell but there are lots of houses and few buyers.
It would seem that clearance rates having gone from around the 80% to 30% suggests that we are now in the later case; lots of houses and few competing buyers to drive bids up.
For 70% of vendors who have gone to auction, they have not got their reserve (read minimum price).
In short; a clearance rate of only 30% indicates vendors are not getting their minimal reserve price and clearly this is putting downward pressure on price expectations.
So FHB, do consider buying if you are in for the long term, but take your time to find the right house to meet your expectations and remember that 70% of vendors are not getting their reserve/minimum price so the ball is in your court to negotiate hard.

Sixty-seven per cent of Aucklanders surveyed by the Property Institute think prices will fall or stagnate in the next six months (not that their press release, regurgitated by the NZ Herald made that clear). https://www.noted.co.nz/money/property/auckland-house-prices-end-of-the…

I sold my house via auction but price I got was about 70-100 K less than than what would have been expected at the peak in 2016. I am relocating to Hamilton due a better to job offer. I am a bit surprised that situation in Hamilton seems different and houses are selling quickly. I am planning to rent initially to see if things slow down .

It must be time for real estate bingo.

Slumping, slowing, sagging, subsiding, sliding, sinking, submerging, softening, sedated, sluggish, sleepy, stagnant.

Auckland, take Sydney as the lead indicator. If Sydney price is falling, I don't think you have much chance of your price going the other way. Simple fact is for an average mainlander, Sydney has much more to offer than Auckland

You always make your money capital wise, when you buy!
Auctions are always where I have bought well in Christchurch!
Motivated vendors who,have paid for marketing and need to get a result!
Now would be a great time to be buying in Auckland I would say if you know what you are doing!
There are opportunities in every market and if you keep your head in the sand and just go on and on about how things are going to get worse, you will miss the opportunities that occur.
That is one of the reasons that many of you need to keep moaning as you have not invested wisely and therefore are very jealous of the people who have!

In Pakuranga heights, stand alone with CV of $1050000 going for early to mid 800s. Appox 20% discont to CV.

18 BALLYDONEGAN RISE in Dannemora went for 850 with a cv of 960 and as per homes.co.nz should be a million dollar near around.

Houses are going 10% to 30% below CV - Current norm.

Good to hear from you, DGZ.

How's life in the upper echelons of Remuera?

Cheers!

TTP

Here are the results of my "analysis"

39 fairly standard Auckland houses were listed as sold in the auction results pages for May 2018. Really just the first week of May.

45.209M sold with a 2017 RV of 43.550M and a 2014 RV of 30.555M

That's 3.8% above 2017 RV and a wopping 47.96% above 2014 RV.

24 sold above 2017 RV
14 under and one for the same value.

These results are remarkably similar to my last analysis.
Conclusion: No change, no crash, nothing desperate here.

It should be noted that theses sales are typically the best prices as houses sold under the hammer or soon afterward. The buyers really wanted them.

The highest above RV was 305k and below was -140k

I could have made mistakes however I tried to be as accurate as possible.

Notable sales. A two beddie in Herne Bay that went for 1.3M, 25% above RV and 73% above 2014 RV.

https://www.barfoot.co.nz/756167

And a real bargain. This is what FHBs should be looking for:

https://www.barfoot.co.nz/755789

Sold for 650k, 2017 RV of 790k and 2014 RV of 570k.
A do-up. This home should have been tidied up, re-carpeted and staged to fetch at least an extra 100k.

The current market is not treating do-ups kindly. Bargains to be had for the astute buyer.

Perhaps simplistic I know – but rightly or wrongly I look at rental market indicators as some sort of market guide.

There is constant talk of buy a property and simply rent it out – it can be that simple, but it can also be a miserable proposition when empty and the costs just keep coming – throw in no capital growth at the same time and the misery hits the jackpot.

It seems to be there is currently something of an upswing in rental availability – maybe it’s seasonal or maybe I’m just wide of the mark.

A glut of rentals would not be pretty – leafy suburbs aside.

Hi custard,

I know a professional couple who are looking for a nice 4-beddie rental in the inner-city suburbs - St Marys Bay, Ponsonby or Grey Lynn areas. The woman's a consultant and works from home - and she wants large rooms (and off-street parking) for clients. She's been struggling to find something for the last 6-7 weeks.

But, one would expect the rental market to fade a bit at this time of the year. Who wants to move house in winter? Most people are settled for the year by May.

TTP

Gordon and/or Retired Poppy, One Roof has reported that they think that CHRISTCHURCH is the BEST FUNCTIONING housing market in the country.
Totally agree with the report!
Affordable with opportunities to make plenty of capital gains and great rental yields.
Maybe this will keep,Gordon quiet for awhile and clearly shows that he hasn’t a clue when it comes to housing investment!
No doubt he will come on and tell us how prices are dropping and how cold and shaky ChCh is!
He hasn’t got a clue!!

Winters is coming....Always has a slow down of sales.

Immigration is dropping and will drop further.
Chinese capital controls (demand side), and overseas money getting the red card soon (supply side).
Losses being fenced. Should stop PAYE manipulation.
Education/Immigration scam is being wound down.
Kiwibuild is getting funded (still just noise but give it time).
Better transport for people vs freight is getting funded.
Rental Property standards (anti slum) inbound.
Water standards being proposed for farmers (biggest debt ponzi of all)
Price rises stalled (at best), significant down side risk of actual capital decline.
Bank lending tightening.
Aussie banks being investigated for poor lending behavior.
Interest only problem in Aussie http://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/buying/home-loan-hike-place-…
Lots of noise about Money printing stopping and its effect on lending rates in the US, and thus the rest of the world.

Will say I am mildly surprised that on the back of all of the above the amount of sales below CV is not greater than it is. A lot of this stuff has not really happened yet it is just being worked on by the new Govt. Standard hype/bubble curve suggest we are somewhere between the denial and fear stages. Next 18 months should be interesting.

Bears stocking up in popcorn, Bulls probably stocking pepto bismol.

ha-ha! while I was watching an action packed Game of Thrones, rabid spruikers were carelessly feasting on Zachary's opaque and unthought out portions.

Zachary, for added transparency, it would have been ideal had you broken down your analysis by region as I suggested above. As you know, some regions of Auckland are now falling in price, others not. If the market is not treating "do ups" kindly this indicates flagging confidence renovations will yield a viable return by way of capital gain. This is a warning sign of a market now past its peak. Your analysis hasn't revealed anything new whatsoever beyond what is already been acknowledged. Auckland's (overall most optimistically reported) 0.8%pa above where it was 12 months ago. REINZ report it as a 2.2% fall. Whatever way value is measured and reported, when adjusted for the rate of inflation, Auckland houses on a "basket case" basis is now eroding in value. With legislative changes in the wind, there are more attractive alternatives for the smart money for some time to come.

No one here has said house prices are currently collapsing. Who said they were? This is a desperate spruiker "scattergun" approach to dealing with a genuine threat to their collective belief. Although TTP, you are weazeling your way closer by admitting recently house prices will fall by a small amount and for FHB it's matters more than ever that they time their entry into the market. You're making a complete fool of yourself.

RP I was responding to these two comments:

Certainly some about RV, but a majority under and some as much at $100k under. - ex socialist

Houses are going 10% to 30% below CV - Current norm. - alittle

I think I proved that the auction results published here do not support these conclusions except that some properties do indeed sell for over 100k under RV however the majority continue to sell for more than RV. On average 3.8% more.