Auction activity winding down, sales rate steady at Barfoot & Thompson

Property

Just 119 properties up for grabs at Barfoot & Thompson's latest auctions, sales on 28% of them

18th Dec 18, 11:51am by Greg Ninness

Auction activity is declining sharply at Auckland largest real estate agency as the Christmas break draws near, but the sales rate remains steady.

Barfoot & Thompson marketed 119 properties for auction last week, down from 148 in the week ending December 9 and down from 180 in the week ending December 2.

This week the agency has just 41 properties scheduled for auction.

However, while the number of properties coming to auction is winding down, the sales rate remains remarkably stable.

Last week the agency achieved sales on 28% of its auction properties, compared to 30% in the week ending December 9 and 29% in the week ending December 2.

At last week's major auctions where at least 10 properties were offered, the sales rates ranged from 17% for the on-site auctions to 38% at the Shortland St auction on December 12.

This will be one our last auction reports for the year, with auction activity likely to dry up from the end of this week and auction marketing campaigns will start up in earnest again in the second half of January.

That means it is likely to be towards the end of January/early February before auction activity is at a sufficient level to produce further auction reports.

We will also be introducing some changes to our auction reports in the New Year.

These will include some new features, which we hope our readers will find useful, and we will also be looking at whether we need to make changes to the way we present the auction data.

There was some good debate among our readers in the comment stream of last weekend's auction story on how we could improve our auction reports and we appreciate the suggestions made by those who shared their ideas and experiences on this topic.

We would welcome any further ideas and suggestions our readers would care to make in the comment stream if this story.

**Barfoot & Thompson Auction Results 10-16 December 2018**
Date	Venue	Sold	Not sold	Total	% Sold
10 December	B&T Epsom	0	1	1	0
12 December	B&T Whangaparaoa	1	0	1	100%
13-15 December	On-site	2	10	12	17%
11 December	Manukau	6	17	23	26%
11 December	B&T Shortland St	3	4	7	43%
12 December	Whangarei	3	3	6	50%
12 December	B&T Shortland St	8	13	21	38%
12 December	Pukekohe	2	2	4	50%
13 December	North Shore	5	21	26	19%
13 December	B&T Shortland St	2	5	7	29%
13 December	Kerikeri	0	4	4	0
14 December	B&T Shortland St	1	6	7	14%
Total	All venues	33	86	119	28%

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

35 Comments

by Pragmatist | 18th Dec 18, 11:59am 1545087553

19% Clearance rate for North Shore. Could've sworn I heard some say the Foreign Buyers Ban was going to have no effect.

by custard | 18th Dec 18, 12:17pm 1545088637

Yes – a certain buyer group appears to have gone MIA.

Having to dust off “appalling” again.

However – it’s certainly not something an appropriate price correction can’t fix.

by bilbo | 18th Dec 18, 12:35pm 1545089744

Yeah...Look at the end of the day I don't recall seeing many at all. I think ordinury niw zillunders know that the buyers are just ordinary tax resident students, mums and dads. Foreign buyers were akshully only about 3%. Now let's get on with the real issues like changing the flag to a white feather.

by Houseworks | 18th Dec 18, 3:51pm 1545101489

What happens on the closetted north shore of auckland has a huuuge, (thanks donald) effect on the rest of us, it's a barometer after all and "the regions will follow".
Watch https://youtu.be/9WsbOLin8qc ..... Merry xmas my friend

by PropertyPrices2Fall | 18th Dec 18, 12:06pm 1545087969

i have noticed a number of properties have their price expectation drop..

my trade me watchlist in a particular price range has seen a jump of around 25 properties in the last 2 days, even though there has been no new listing .. has been relatively stagnant since beginning of dec,

by Ex Expat | 18th Dec 18, 12:14pm 1545088495

Updated Core Logic value as at 16/12/18 = 96.5% of 2017 CV. The slide has started and as it gathers momentum hopefully it will sink the SS COL. Rick Street, grab a lifejacket or go down with the ship..

by Zombie ponzi | 18th Dec 18, 12:45pm 1545090349

Thanks for the update, always interesting.

by Nic Johnson | 18th Dec 18, 1:05pm 1545091542

Cheers Ex Expat. you don't think the resignation of the Chief Economist of the RBNZ is any signal that maybe they might not have been particularly awake over the last 10 years or so. Leaders are dropping like flies at present. Ashley Church is on his way. JK jumped early. Watch for tony Alexander's retirement early in the New Year???

by NorthernLights | 18th Dec 18, 3:42pm 1545100945

Jk yes realized the good ship economy was taking on water
Tony A never
His ecomic proclamations over the years have provided much mirth like the great comedian Les Dawson did
Pretty sad when as a economist a taxi driver & a plumber provided better on the ground analysis of the current state of the local economy
Tony needed to spend more time out of the high rise [ sorry lowrise ]

by tothepoint - d… | 18th Dec 18, 12:20pm 1545088858

Housing market remains steady as she goes - which is the nub of today's headline.

Overall, 2018 has been an unspectacular year.......

But can't be too critical as we're going through a period of consolidation - and a stable/orderly market counts for something.

TTP

by Chairman Moa | 18th Dec 18, 12:24pm 1545089074

Define "steady".
If success rate is 5%, is that considered to be steady?

by Greg Ninness | 18th Dec 18, 12:59pm 1545091193

It is if it remains at 5% for a period of time...

by Nic Johnson | 18th Dec 18, 1:06pm 1545091604

That's made me smile Greg... Gallows humour at it's finest!

by PropertyPrices2Fall | 18th Dec 18, 1:17pm 1545092245

thats quite a myopic view of the statement..

what about the 95% that hasnt been selling over a period of time (lets say 6 months), so with the unsold stock growing, is the market still considered 'steady'??

by custard | 18th Dec 18, 1:28pm 1545092905

Good point.

Sales rate “steady” but “market” and its underlying fundamentals – not so?

by Greg Ninness | 18th Dec 18, 1:48pm 1545094128

The article was about the sales rate at auctions held by one particular agency, not the total market. You are confusing the two.

by PropertyPrices2Fall | 18th Dec 18, 2:26pm 1545096367

doesnt look like im the one thats confused..

TTP referred to the 'Housing market being steady', not Barfoots sale rate being steady.. and you responded with a statement to prove what is defined by steady...

by NorthernLights | 18th Dec 18, 3:48pm 1545101327

20% sold now a success story in sales ?
Must be smoking wacky backy

by Houseworks | 18th Dec 18, 3:58pm 1545101931

Much like those planning a referendum are wacky

by PropertyPrices2Fall | 18th Dec 18, 4:12pm 1545102765

it must be the season for rejoicing :)

by Crazy Horse | 18th Dec 18, 6:00pm 1545109207

ttp ..... I think you are really "taking the p*ss" rather than "to the point" ...in anyones language, at any time, a 28% auction clearance rate is crap ....meanwhile the DOW went down 2% Friday and 2% yesterday, Monday....but you probably wouldn't know what the DOW is..... I hope for your sake your tenants don't start losing their jobs .....as for "capital gains" well, that's going to be the great big Kiwi joke for 2019 !!!

by NorthernLights | 18th Dec 18, 3:46pm 1545101189

Tothepoint
I see that rosey glass is shaping your market vision
A glass full
Careful not to spill

by Pragmatist | 18th Dec 18, 3:51pm 1545101470

Maybe its a glass of Rosé... and not the first?

by BacktoPerth | 18th Dec 18, 12:22pm 1545088958

Makes perfect sense. In 2017 NZ was the most unaffordable place in the World for housing. Now demand is no longer at its peak, and prices will fall. In my mind, significantly.

by custard | 18th Dec 18, 12:49pm 1545090590

Still plenty of potential demand there – it just doesn’t have the same overall financial firepower as previous buyers – and equally may be more interested in buying an actual home rather than some of the more spurious reasons of prior participants.

So a necessary price adjustment to come as you suggest – significant or otherwise.

by BacktoPerth | 18th Dec 18, 1:53pm 1545094392

I agree with you Custard, at the moment, however demand will taper off, with an impending credit squeeze (symptomatic of market crashes that has been touted...). Then the market will get tested. Also seeing what happened in the Port Hedland, Aussie - properties dropped by over 60% from significant highs, as demand for the properties where impacted by a drop off of large mining companies demand for accommodation... The same can be compared with the foreign investment, which was the catalyst of these ridiculous prices... once thats gone, who in their right mind is going to take out a mortgage for $800k, let alone get the deposit of $160k...

by Wrong John | 18th Dec 18, 2:10pm 1545095403

Things for the home team are also getting tricky. They're trying to stop the news getting in and getting out. They're on Planet China. However, if it wasn't for China (& others) printing money 10 years ago we would have already had our moment of truth, and things would have settled down. Or would they? 'Reality sucks' my friend Richard always reminds me & he's right. Everyone will be sucking, some more than others, and we'll just have to suck it up. On the good news register, they're trying really hard to manage things in an orderly fashion, which is really decent of them.
How successful will they be this time?
Watch this space I suppose.

by Yvil | 18th Dec 18, 2:33pm 1545096796

A house on a very small site (289m2) on my street went up for sale in Nov. I went through the house and I also attended the auction. There was only 1 bidder who bid $1.725 M. It was a B&T auction, they don't do vendor bidding so it stayed at that and was passed in. The next week it had an asking price of $2.175 M which, in my opinion was a lot too high given the tiny land size. It sold last weekend for an even $2.00 M

by PropertyPrices2Fall | 18th Dec 18, 2:36pm 1545097013

the property has gone unconditional?

by Yvil | 18th Dec 18, 3:54pm 1545101657

Why, you wanna buy it?

by PropertyPrices2Fall | 18th Dec 18, 4:14pm 1545102872

too scared to answer the question!!!

by NorthernLights | 18th Dec 18, 3:59pm 1545101942

Same happened to 1 of my kiwi properties
1 bid at auction
Passed in
Sold for 300K more in about 7 days later
Block of flats sold similar way
Auctions are great teasers sometimes giving no indication of ultimate sale result
Auckland will miss those vanloads Of Chinese “investors”
The crazy times had to end

by Yvil | 18th Dec 18, 6:40pm 1545111640

Actually when I was at the B&T auction, I counted the "asian" faces and the "caucasian" faces for fun, I can't remember the exact numbers (each in the high 40's) but it was almost half and half. (of course asian faces can be Kiwis)

by Nzdan | 18th Dec 18, 9:42pm 1545122554

50% were buyers, 50% were interpreters or bus drivers.

by Houseworks | 18th Dec 18, 4:07pm 1545102420

Didnt sell at auction but it did sell. Good example why the auction stats are myopic and misleading.