Harcourts has record website views in August; Believes Auckland market share grew

Harcourts NZ CEO Bryan Thomson said the real estate group's website had a record amount of unique visitors in August, suggesting the traditional spring selling season will be busy. Thomson also said that Harcourts' preliminary sales figures for August showed similar results to July, with volumes sold and price levels remaining "solid." "In July we set a new (website) record to date but then in August we've topped that "“ according to the latest statistics from Nielsen Online Market Intelligence receiving 185,687 unique visitors in the month, which is a significant increase on last year," Thomson said. "As we said last month this level of activity reflects the returning confidence in the market and suggests that there could be a lot of sales activity in spring," he said. In July, Harcourts reported 1,869 property sales, with average prices of NZ$525,000 in the Northern region; NZ$345,000 in the Central region; NZ$307,000 in the Wellington region; NZ$366,000 in Christchurch; and NZ$284,000 in the rest of the South Island. "The nationwide group's initial unaudited figures for August are at similar levels to July and well ahead of the same month last year, with an average of 38% more written sales being completed last month than in August 2008," Thomson said. In terms of prices, Thomson said Harcourts' indicative average written sales figures for August in some regions again showed the impact of the slower rural market. "(H)owever according to anecdotal feedback from around New Zealand's largest real estate group residential prices are holding firm, with the high level of demand seeing some excellent prices being achieved around the country," he said. "The exception is our Northern region where written sales numbers have increased by 12%, thanks to a combination of the more active market in our largest city and, we believe, strong marketshare growth for our team in Auckland." Auckland's largest real estate group, Barfoot and Thompson, which generally has around 40% of the market, is due to release its August figures during the next week. These are viewed as a useful indicator for Real Estate Institute of New Zealand figures due to be released midway through the month, around the same time as Harcourts' audited figures. Earlier this week, a report from realestate.co.nz, which sees about 90% of New Zealand residential property listings, said lower listings growth than expected ahead of spring could mean prices get pushed up as demand increases during the season.