Female real estate agents are setting the pace when it comes to selling residential property in Auckland's heated housing market, according to performance results from the city's largest real estate company Barfoot & Thompson.
Barfoot & Thompson accounts for something like 40% of all housing sales in Auckland. Its latest sales figures for April showed that the company recorded sales of 1062 properties, which was its best April figure for 11 years, although the median price dipped 2.4% to NZ$566,000.
Managing director of the firm Peter Thompson said the top three sales people - all women - had made sales with a value of more than NZ$200 million combined in the past March financial year.
The three: Nadja Court, Yvonne Wang and Jane Wang finished top out of more than 1400 agents across Auckland and Northland.
"Together the trio have sold more than 300 homes and at average price of NZ$721,000," Thompson said.
"Over the last decade, the number of women agents featuring in Barfoot & Thompson’s list of Top 25 salespeople has steadily increased. This year and last the number of female salespeople has outnumbered males (15 out of the 2013 Top 25 were female)."
Mairangi Bay-based agent Nadja Court has now been the firms No 1 salesperson for the past two years.
New female agent Kelly Zhang of Mt Albert was awarded the firm's coveted Rookie of the Year title as well as placing 23rd in the Top 25.
"During her first financial year in real estate the talented marketer sold more than 70 properties and even set the record in her branch for selling 19 homes in just one month," Thompson said.
He said he was pleased to see continuing diversity in the company’s Top 25 each year.
“As the Auckland market continues to grow and diversify, we are seeing the same in our salespeople. No two of our 1400-strong team are the same – all bring with them different professional backgrounds, skills and approaches to getting the best results for their clients.”
The Top 25 agents were:
1. Nadja Court, Mairangi Bay
2. Yvonne Wang, Mairangi Bay
3. Jane Wang, Panmure
4. George Fong, Epsom
5. Raymond Li, Glenfield
6. Daniel Huang, Meadowlands
7. Aken Yuan, New Lynn
8. Diana Buczkowski, Epsom
9. Sunny Chae, Browns Bay
10. Helen Lam, Greenlane
11. Eddie Zhao, West Harbour
12. Johnson Chen, City
13. Yi Wei Lowndes, Royal Oak
14. Lily Zhang, Browns Bay
15. Elizabeth du Plessis, Pukekohe
16. Karin Cooper, St Heliers
17. Bob Qin, Northcote
18. Francis Li, Epsom
19. Stephen Chang, Greenlane
20. Ann Lepper, Birkenhead
21. Alex Wu, New Lynn
22. Kelly Midwood, St Heliers
23. Kelly Zhang, Mt Albert
24. Victor Li, Northcote
25. Cathy Li, Milford
Rural Salesperson of the Year: Ian Croft, Pukekohe
Commercial Salesperson of the Year: Murray Tomlinson, City
Property Manager of the Year: Shelley Erceg, Epsom
Branch of the Year: Epsom (Manager: Pam Erceg)
73 Comments
It's strange that the solution offered to Auckland's housing woes is to jam in everyone like sardines into concrete towers.
Why not come to reality, NZ can not survive a geologically imminent volcanic event in Auckland Central, if the entire country is centred there.
Moreover NZ can't survive Auckland becoming a suburb of Beijing.
The solution is to all but ban immigration to Auckland, and to not allow immigration to be dominated by Asians - 2 billion would probably come here if that could - that is no use to us.
I see this ownership debate as a big smoke screen...
the problem is Auckland houses are in short supply due to council planning constraints. If there was no shortage, property would be within reach of locals.
this artificial supply bottleneck is affecting locals adversely as locals have to buy with local incomes. Overseas buyers are choosing to buy in NZ as they can afford to buy based on their incomes.
If supply constraints are removed altogether locals can afford property and overseas buyers that do not plan to live here will not buy for speculative purposes as there is no guarantee that pricies would constantly rise. Supply constraints are really hurting locals more and promising overseas buyers a sure shot bet with ever increasing prices which attracts more of them here. I guess some local administrator/council/govt gets this soon...If not soon a 2 bedroom 1950s built auckland unit could cost $1mil....
Yes, I think the writer missed the real story of these stats. Fact is when I purchase a house I select an agent I feel would understand my lifestyle, culture and who I can communicate with effectively and hopefully trust. Its not quite the same as a dentist, heart specialist etc although these may also be overrepresented by non europeans. I admire any hardworking person who seeks to improve society in the area of influence no matter what race.
To right daz, agreed.
I'm for selling properties to foriegners and bringing their muller into NZ, as long this is ballanced with the production of more housing but at a special low cost for first home residents who live and work in NZ (say 3 times the average income)
Even if foriegners pay over the odds for a market that the experts are confirming is 25% to high.
Lets face it the overseas buyers don't care about NZ and the people, there just interested in making money out of us, I say "make em pay" as soon as the NZ economy looks like crashing again, they'll sell and head back to their wonderfull culture.
Share your perspectives. Could we have a capital gains tax applying only to foreign nationals? (no NZ passport). What worries me is if non resident owners are selling to each other and pushing up the market. Similar to the FX carry trade. Both detremental to NZrs.
As a wholesaler of home improvement products I am concerned that reducing rates of home ownership and higher mortgage servicing costs are shrinking my target market. Whilst as a home owner using the capital value of my home as security foe busines loans I love capital gains as I can access cheap funds for investment whats the point if there are less homeowners and those that do cant afford my products. Note to self - Be careful what you wish for!
Lets face it dazz,
NZ realestate market is full of corruption, one reads about what agents get up to regularly in the media.
Even the construction of the buildings carry a huge finacial risk with leakies and home handy man poxy un-consented add ons and alterations.
Combine that with the bank funded inflated realestate agency ponzi scheme, relative to the what the actual local economy can afford is way out of whack, debt levels are now at saturation point driven by interest rate levels.
What should be a simple, safe investment is full of risk and deceit, the whole bidding process is engineered and manipulated to pressure on the punters into make hasty descisions.
As an investment it does not stack up.
Well the stats are well documented - http://www.mbie.govt.nz/what-we-do/housing/housing-key-facts here is one of the most recent.
Home ownership NZ early 90's 75% now 65%. Auckland 2001 64% now 58%
What we are seeing is more conjecture but based on the assumption that its home owners that spend larger amounts in M10, bunnings etc on home improvement and DIY projects. If they are not paying too much of the earnings to service debt levels that is.
So we could say that our target market has diminshed by 10% over 20yrs. If that trend is accelerating (prices still growing faster than incomes) we could expect that to drop quicker over the next 20 yrs to maybe 50%. They will increasingly be older persons as its the younger ones being squeezed out.
I'm sure at that level, all estate agents work pretty hard. I'm also sure that if you looked at the top 25 estate agents in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, New Plymouth, Taupo etc.... you'd not see a similar proportion of Chinese, because they don't have the Chinese buyers down there.
By your logic, the top people in every industry in NZ should also be Chinese because they work harder.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it's probably a duck.
Changing Names - Mortgage Fraud - SFO
You cant always judge a book by it's cover
Ladies of non-anglo origin often marry caucasians and change their name, while others simply anglicise their names
Seven charged in SFO mortgage case
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10885901
Those allegedly involved are -
Mehrdad Ghorbani, also goes by the name of Mohammad Ghorbani Sarsangi
Mehran Ghorbani also goes by the name of Massoud Ghorbani
Nasrin Kardani
Mehrzad Ghorbani also goes by the name of Mehdi Ghorbani
Hassan Salarpour
Javad Toraby.
Mehran Ghorbani aka (goes by the name) Ken Williams
Name Changers ..
skull-duggery in the Auckland property game .. it's never simple ..
As time goes by more details emerge
Eli Devoy, 44 - also known as Ellie Stone and also known as Eli Ghorbani
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10886069
Foreigners .. not Kiwis
Why don't we ever get down to talking about the enabling financial mechanisms executed by the likes of ANZ to finance this market?
Why not deify those heroic interest rate swap salespersons and their market makers who execute $billions all day long to achieve the underpinnings of the Auckland real estate market?
We can no longer ignore the magnitue of the financial transactions that are the basis of the BT ladies' claim to the accolades. Read on and demand an explanation about a situation in urgent need of the disinfectant qualities of exposure.
Who or how do you think we (the average person) can act effectively to remedy the situation / effect change?
I suggest we lobby politicians with proactive agendas similar to those epoused by Russel Norman - they have to demand the regulatory authorities get past the falsely erected barrier of "commercially sensitive information" to implement professional analysis of said trading positions. Thereafter this information should be publicly available in a format that can be understood in terms of depositor risk in the event of a systemic collapse demanding OBR type intervention.
Stephen Hulme
How do you think we can remedy the situation and effect change?
When you either post or see a worthwhile comment, while it is in the comment stream, it has an item number. When you click on the comment the URL link appears in your browser window including its item number. Once it disappears from the comment stream the item number is lost. While it's available you can copy the URL-link and if you have a Twitter and/or Facebook account you can post-tweet the link to your favourite polly-tician ie @RusselNorman @winstonpetersmp facebook/winstonpeters
Look at the souce code and get the comment number. Find a comment from the comment stream from the same thread and change the comment number to the one required. If there are no relevant comments listed, make one.
Stephen Hulme's comment that I presume you want to reference becomes :
http://www.interest.co.nz/property/64597/barfoot-thompson-says-top-thre…
Fair enough - yes - we'd all like to know which deposit taking institutions really are the safest (if any at all). Full disclosure sure never will become a policy of any party on the right.
But even if we (and the whole world for that matter) did have full disclosure - would that go any way towards 'solving' the derivatives mess? Or is it going to have to be resolved by a correcting big-bang type event in your opinion?
But even if we (and the whole world for that matter) did have full disclosure - would that go any way towards 'solving' the derivatives mess? Or is it going to have to be resolved by a correcting big-bang type event in your opinion?
We may be in the midst of such a dilemma
This an extrordinarily painful exercise for those that due to statutory asset allocation restrictions must maintain position - the flow on to this market is just as expensive and unpleasant - the fortunes of derivative books are closely aligned with the wellbeing of these gigantic, but now unstable anchor sovereign debt markets.
So it's big bang then :-).
Most scary - does this imply we'll have another of those settlement crises pretty soon? If so, what will the US be able to do this time? I'm guessing Bejing will make a move to fill the gap?
All this conjecture from a very untrained eye. I just hope our government has been smart enough to stockpile antibiotics.
My understanding is the RBNZ is not actively demanding to review the actual positions of each registered NZ bank - I guess they along with the rest of us have to hope an untoward examination by the auditors would be signalled beyond a confidential chat with the management.
But given the Crown still extends a wholesale guarantee to ANZ (page 3, (4-84)), I would have thought due diligence requirements demand Treasury has a right to examine the books or at least appoint an independent agent to do so on our behalf.
Guarantors
Crown Wholesale Guarantee
As at the date of signing this Disclosure Statement the Banking Group has debt securities with a carrying value at 30 September 2012 of $205 million for which the Crown has issued a Guarantee Eligibility Certificate under the New Zealand Wholesale Funding Guarantee Facility (“Crown Wholesale Guarantee”), copies of which are available on the Treasury website treasury.govt.nz. The Treasury’s address for service is Level 5, 1 The Terrace, Wellington. New Zealand.
LOL - I must be off my head thinking someone is taking precautionary steps to rein in future losses. Nothing could be further from the truth - it is, as ever, a case of letting the market sort it out in a light handed regime and call upon the taxpayers to bear the costs thereafter.
Preemptive action calls for exercise of responsibility and demands of duty - inexcusably gauche pastimes.
I meant collectively booked, insurmountable losses from all varieties of derviative products, not just exchange traded futures contracts.
This is getting a bit too exciting for those charged with the responsibility of maintaining global equilibrium.
Stephen Hulme: you asked for the electricity pricing schedule posted by David Chaston
Here it is on the 3rd May on this article at 07:53 am
The reality for some people. Talking to a friend in Auckland last evening. 48 year old daughter with three teenagers, divorce settlement $300,000. She was a stay at home mum to bring up the kids. No formal qualifications. Now has job 20 hours max per week on minimum wage (ex-husband is fine - six figure salary). She has lived in North Shore suburb - mostly blue collar. Can't afford the $450 plus per week rentals and can't afford to take out a mortgage; Has been to over 60 houses for sale, her father has looked at a further 65. All Auctions. Eventually settled on a home, was successful - only "Native" New Zealander at auction. Cost of house at auction - $500,000 so her (superannuitant) parents had to front up with the shortfall thereby diminishing their retirement fund. They have two other children whose (maybe if anything left) inheritance is now diminished somewhat as well. Effect of Auckland's overpriced housing market - four families affected - future not looking good.
So instead of all the would-be economists, greedy investors et al who bitch at each other on this website about the housing market, could someone come up with a solution.
Awful reality but leaving Auckland will sooner or later have to be the way many go. Minimum wage is the same the country over, but house prices aren't and neither are rental costs. I know that is hard on families - yet it was also quite hard I'm sure for the parents to earn and then save that $200K as well.
Difficult choices.
Oh Gee. Bali going ahead:
In Bali, rich foreigners are sparking a property frenzy, but who benefits?Luxury property prices in Indonesia are rising faster than anywhere else in the world, according to a new report.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/09/bali-property-frenzy-islanders-boom
This one Chinese agent I met (not in the list), hired 3 assitants (1 indian and 2 pakeha), worked long hours throughout the week (phone calls and knocking on doors 9 PM on a Sat night). Majority of his clients (sells or buyers) however, are not Chinese. Not sure if he's born here, accent not telling.
I've looked through hundreds of Auckland houses in the last few years and the majority of listing agents were ethnically European (NZ born or otherwise).
The majority of Asian agents listed undesirable properties such as apartments townhouses and flats or houses that had problems (such as main road locations and under power lines etc) or houses in grotty locations.
Given that most of the agents that sell freestanding homes in good Auckland suburbs aren't on the list apart from Diane Buckowski, it is clear that these top scoring Asian agents must be making their commissions by acting as buyers agents.
In general only Asian buyers would chose an Asian agent to act for them (often due to language issues) hence a very large majority of buyers must be Asian. In fact I suspect that for a rookie to have sold 19 properties in one month (nearly one every working day) that it required having clients purchasing virtually every property they viewed! Which means the buyers probably were buying multiple properties without much consideration and purchasing for investment rather than occupation. (I know if I was looking to buy my own home I would view dozens before deciding).
So my point is that the success of the Asian agents reflects the ethnicity of the buyers in the market.
China is a very tall poppy indeed Chairman Mao, with the worlds largest population and correspondingly large numbers of wealthy people. Their wealth wont necessarily help local people, however and the influx is putting up house prices, putting pressure on the environment also:
*/
“Among policy and analytical circles in New Zealand there is a pretty high degree of enthusiasm for high levels of immigration. Some of that stems from the insights of literature on increasing returns to scale. Whatever the general global story, the actual productivity track record here in the wake of very strong inward migration is poor. In an Australian context, the Productivity Commission – hardly a hot-bed of xenophobia or populism – concluded that any benefits from migration to Australia were captured by migrants and there were few or no discernible economic benefits to Australians. And that was in a country already rich and successful and with materially higher national saving and domestic investment rates than those in NZ.”
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/downloads/pdfs/mi-jarrett-comm.pdf
*/
“The big adverse gap in productivity between New Zealand and other countries opened up from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The policy choice that increased immigration – given the number of employers increasingly unable to pay First-World wages to the existing population and all the capital requirements that increasing populations involve – looks likely to have worked almost directly against the adjustment New Zealand needed to make and it might have been better off with a lower rate of net immigration. This adjustment would have involved a lower real interest rate (and cost of capital) and a lower real exchange rate, meaning a more favourable environment for raising the low level of productive capital per worker and labour productivity. The low level of capital per worker is a striking symptom of New Zealand’s economic challenge.
”
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/reviews-consultation/savingsworkinggroup/pdfs/swg-report-jan11.pdf
JH: benefits from migration into Australia are captured by migrants and there were few or no discernible economic benefits to Australians
A hot political topic in Australia at the moment are 457-visas which allow employers to bring in people with skills that are supposedly needed. There are 100,000 457-visas currently on issue. The government has just discovered that the scheme is being rorted by employers to bring in cheap labour. Yesterday Ford Australia announced it was terminating manufacture in Australia with the loss of 1500 long-time employees jobs. On the day of that announcement the ASX fell $30 billion. Today it is down another $40 billon. Having some difficulty in seeing the benefits in all this
The same is being experienced in USA with their H1B visas scheme.
Are auctions the predominant method of selling in Auckland city? If so then you wonder if this sort of behaviour is happening in pushing up prices. If there are other cultures involved in the process with different expectations of behaviour then it could be common place and also quite hard to detect.
In Auckland, by and large the Asian agents service Asian clients, so this result clearly shows the extent of the Chinese driven property boom, whether they be residents or non-residents.
It is extremely sad that in such a short period of time the effective sovereignty of NZers is being given away to whoever wants to come here.
And all to what end?
All this immigration has done, is to drive house prices out of the reach of locals, swamped job markets and bring very little in the way of true economic growth.
NZ could easy have survived, in fact thrived if the Asian and Pacific immigrants of the past three or four decades had not encamped themselves upon our shores.
Decades of inept leadership plus a total lack of understanding about the consequences of such immigration has left NZ in a situation which nears irreversibility. Once migrants and their descendants outnumber locals, democracy means immigration will be allowed to swell their ranks further still.
Do NZers whose parents, grandparents and great great grandparents carved this country out of windswept hills and scrub, have to endure subjugation at the hands of an immigrant population forcing them out of their own cities and indeed their own country?
That is not what our great uncles and cousins died for on the beaches of Galipoli or the fields of Flanders.
It is not racism to demand the protection of our identity or culture.
I am not opposed to sharing NZ with peoples from around the world.
I am opposed to an unending tide of immigrants from one region establishing their own city within a city, like some invading and occupying force.
NZ can not handle such tsunami of immigrants, nor should its people have to endure it.
ChrisJ - Unfortunately our political leaders will not allow any fall in house prices. The only way they can continue house price escalation is via increased immigration and allowing non-residents to purchase NZ property. Of course this will end badly but the perpetrators will no longer be in office.
Winston's latest salvo;
http://nzfirst.org.nz/speech/auckland-super-city-or-sin-city
Related policy in there;
- back to 75% of all immigration quota filled under the "skilled migrant" category... presently around that percentage come in under the buy-your-residence category.
- in terms of the parents of migrants policy - the quota would be based on the percentage by nationality of migrants .. presently (for reasons not explained) they say 50% of those parents now coming in are parents of Chinese immigrants
- superannuation payment based on number of years (out of 35; that being between the ages of 20-65) resident in New Zealand (present immigrants collect full super after 10 years here).
What is also interesting is the relationship he draws to our importing an ethic of corruption - noting NZ companies getting drawn into this in respect of our growing trade relationships with China (Zespri, Fonterra) as well as the recent university cheating service, unpaid migrant workers etc.
And of course our (first/only?) immigrant Chinese MP's career ended on a similar note;
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10694214
Not that Winston raised that, nor is such abuse of Parliamentary travel in any way the exclusive historic realm of Pansy Wong and her hubby.
Tony Alexanders study that Asians are not influencing house prices is now shown up as the five minute think tank that it was. Asians are controlling the market in Akl. Most of the fast moving builders are Asian, the agents are Asians and the buyers, especially on the shore are Asians.I went to an auction last week and out of the 40 possible bidders there was one European. The Asian agent selling the house actually told me that the builder (Asian again) had placed the spec home in his mothers name so that he could avoid paying tax on it. The next one was going in dad's name. Another agent said that in his opinion money laundering was going on at a massive level.
One way the invasion is gathering legs is the way immigrants can bring in parents if the centre of gravity is now in NZ following the childrens transit to NZ. As the one child policy this means that for every "worker / tax payer" (not sure if my spec builder qualifies here) you end up with approx 1.2 elderly folk who after 10 years in NZ can get full pension and health without ever paying any tax. It is so visible and wrong but our leaders ignore it. NZ First has picked up on it and are starting to make some noise and if they continue then for the first time Winston has my vote. Immigration is said to be small at the moment but this type of immigration is just plainly criminal. Auckland does not need to grow with these people. Unneccessary stress to healthcare, transport, education and the pension plan can be stopped right here.
Another point noticed is our young asian neighbours have dissappeared but the two pre schoolers children they have are left with the grandparents. I presume that having got all the paperwork sorted, brought out the folks and set up the bolt hole with some spare dirty money they have returned to get a bit more. It is so laughable - a bit like the Russians saying that when it comes time to hang the Americans the yanks will sell them the rope to do it. Does anyone think the Chinese would let us get a pension, never having worked in China or paid tax? . NZ need to wake up else we will turn into another Fiji where the massive Indian immigration turfed out the natives and caused such social unrest that it is still getting sorted. Singapore is another example.
A final point - when you went into an Asian cafe last time did you notice that the whole crew was Asian. Its not just houses they are buying.....
Around 6000 real estate agents have left the industry since 2007, while Jane Wang sold around one house every three days.
Is this clever or what? or is it a swindle?
You need to read both articles in conjunction with one-another
Home-build lure for Asian migrants
Develop a new build in Taupo that you are not allowed to live in
What the heck are they going to do with it?
In NZ Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10885812
In The Borneo Post
There are also tax advantages because as an investment-friendly country, New Zealand has no stamp duty, mortgage stamp duty, land tax, property purchase tax nor capital gains tax. Some countries (eg Australia) require property buyers to pay stamp duty tax, up to 3-4 per cent of the purchase price.
Plus buying from overseas is simpler than it sounds. The government has no major barriers for overseas property investors and the market is growing with an upwards trend of 7-8 per cent, surpassing the 2007 peak. The value of property projects involved with lifestyle activities has grown at an average of 20 per cent and sales of such projects have increased in value by up to 10 per cent.
“The property has up to 45 per cent discount on registered valuation and there are 75 lots in total. Prices start from 112,000 NZD.”
google "kingfisher lake taupo" lookit all the promos in malaysia
Hmm - and the Borneopost link suggests Globe Holdings are behind the development - but nothing on their website about it;
http://www.globeholdings.co.nz/main_home.htm
Didn't see it on TradeMe either and you're right .. when doing the search you don't get any NZ websites - only overseas ones. What is it - property in NZ you can't buy as a NZer? Not unlike the Crafar farms, when you think about it.
Globe Holdings Ltd is a $100 company
Does that smell all right to you?
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