Barfoot & Thompson had another rock solid month in July with sales numbers at a six year high.
The real estate agency, which is the largest by a significant margin in the Auckland region, sold 1235 residential properties in July, barely changed form the 1243 it sold in June. However, that was up 13% on July last year, and up a whopping 41% on July 2019.
Last month's sales were the highest for the month of July since 2015. Selling prices remained extremely firm.
The agency's average selling price set a new record of $1,183,602, an increase of just over $40,000 compared to June, while the median price declined slightly to $1,101,000. That's down by $8000 from June's record of $1,109,000.
The agency received 1349 new listings in July. That's down 11% from July 2020, but up 17% compared to July 2019. Barfoots had a total of just 2629 residential properties available for sale at the end of July, down by almost a third compared to July 2020 and 2019.
That's the lowest number of homes the agency has had available for sale in any month of the year for more than five years, meaning buyers may be faced with a limited choice of homes to buy.
Barfoot & Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson said the company's stock levels were at their lowest level for the middle of winter "in modern times."
"The winter months are normally a time when market activity slows, and prices and sales can edge lower," he said.
"However there are no signs of that occurring this year."
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The Labor government have completely lost the plot.
God knows what future we face.
It'll be between the haves and have nots. Depending on which camp you are in will determine how you feel about the situation.
I find it's better just to shut up about it these days. I was in decades ago, not bought or sold in years. Never expected anything like this to happen, we had rather modest ambitions looking back. For us it 'just happened' We haven't participated in the latest madness.
One way ticket to Australia...
Depending on the camp you are in.
I'm in the "in" camp. Love the increases.
Sums up our self interested society.
'If I am going great guns and others are in misery, great!'
See ya mate! Btw, will you be selling your house? I'm interested.
This series of posts nicely sums of the culture/psychological issues we face.
NZ is rapidly turning into a very nasty/hostile place to be.
How many houses would you need to own before you would be happy?
For many happiness is dependant on others being unhappy.
And has NZ become a prime example of that.
The older generation created fantastic country, the boomer landlords have wrecked it beyond recognition,
Yes rastus agree. In my experience, those following the greatest generation are morally/ethically lost. I don't think the post above is from a boomer however - so the hostility exists across generations in our society.
In terms of boomers - many I know are financially well off. But they're completely lost in terms of what principles they believe in and are willing to act upon and as a result a morally poor. Most appear completely overwhelmed but are unwilling to admit that - yet they want to retain control and continue to status quo (because of the benefit to themselves). There are of course exceptions to this like anything - and I know some (but not many!) boomers that can see what is happening and would like to change the situation - see Chris-M below as an example.
Some altruism is sorely needed across society (and not just NZ...but most of the western world).
I don't know that it breaks down so clearly along inter generational lines. I am a boomer have children, and am totally distraught at what is happening. I am far from alone among my peers. Sure I know a few of my generation that are as you describe. I also know a few of my 34 years old sons generation who have totally embraced the property speculation merry go round and are very comfortably multi multi millionaires. (Smart enough crystalize enough of their gains to secure their future whatever happens)
I suspect that this behavior is pretty evenly spread through the generations. It would be interesting to see some analysis.
The "great generation" prior to the boomers did do an amazing job of starting this country with horses and back-breaking labour. But they did not create the country the boomers did, with their bulldozers, steel, concrete and frankly the number of them.
Boomer landlords built the houses they owned in the main, and the continue to build them, around one third of New Zealand’s homes have been built in the last 20 years.
I am no a Boomer and house prices have increased the most in the last few years from any time in our history, its time to let this chestnut go.
I'm not sure about this... It seems like a lot of our most important infrastructure, both physical and institutional, was built by the generation before the Boomers, in the 40s-70s. There might be some Boomers around who worked on hydro plants in their uni holidays, but the initiative (and the taxes to pay for the infrastructure) came from an older generation.
"Baby boomer" is a term used to describe a person who was born between 1946 and 1964 so they will have been building this infrastructure from circa 1965. The older generation certainly built their share but all the Dams, all our motorways and almost all our power stations we have were built as part of National's "Think Big" in the late 70's and early 80's.
Zero sum game. That's reality. There will always be greed.
Those who own more than 1 property, those are the ones with moral issues. Why would you ever need more than 1 property? What happened to having 1 home to have a roof over your families shoulders?
Until the government issues a mandate to restrict one house per resident, this will never go away.
Interesting that we blame asset price inflation on investors but we dont blame consumer price inflation on consumers.... you know...greedy evil consumers.
Both types of inflation require excessive monetary inflation.
The cause ( blame for ) of monetary inflation lies solely at the feet of Central Banks and Govts.
For me, its not a surprise that the govt and central bank response to covid has resulted in the biggest crackup boom in our lifetime.
Its global....
They use the term unconventional monetary policy... But thats a corruption of the word.
Kinda like saying a cheat is just playing by unconvential rules..... And there is a price to pay
I know a residential property investor and his life philosophy is "shit runs downhill". This was after I questioned him about raising his rents to pay for his expensive toys.
Something I noticed after living overseas is how much nicer people are to each other in most other countries. Especially between social classes.
New Zealand does seem to have a widespread culture of punching down on those less fortunate that would be abhorred in much of Europe.
Quite a few of these P.O.S in these forums.
And punching down high achievers.
Are you seriously trying to tell us that the social classes in London for example are all nice to each other?
They just don't mix as often as we do. But from my experience when they do, they mix well, however I am not sure they are better at this than we are. I suspect we have a very much smaller upper-class and a more cohesive view of who we are as a people. I rowed on the Thames with a crew that contained a doctor from Cambridge/Eton and a labourer from Essex. We all got on really well but beyond our crew gatherings there was limited social interaction.
Nicer. The wealthier classes tend to not go around bragging and being assh*les to people "beneath" them.
That kind of behaviour would be much more likely to earn a knife wound than here though.
NZ is probably too nice. I've seen countries where the wealth gap would make NZ a laughing joke.
A long time ago, we were a caring society that strived for egalitarianism.
Since the mid 80s we have evolved more and more towards a selfish, dog eat dog, society.
they try hard but lets face it they are totally incompetent
Even now this F$#@ are not raising the LVR from 40% as that will effect speculators but just changing high risk loan that is mostly used by FHB.
Love it. With spring just around the corner prices will keep edging up. Realised 260k profits from one sale. The other is up 100k and will be up another 100k by year's end at this rate.
I predict prices to flat line from winter 2022.
I agree, I predicted this sort of thing back on Jan, the rate of increase will be less but I still see a 20% plus increase from Feb 2021 to Feb 2022 then flattening next year. The LVR "change" is already adopted with only 9.6%of lending being at under 80% and has been that way this year so that's just political headlines. The DTI will have an effect once in place, however only starting discussions in October, they said it will take atleast 3 months so no implications there till early 2022 at best.
I don't think what you say about LVR change already being adopted is true. You need to look at owner occupier lending only. I think it is about 12% over 80% now. When the speed limit has been 10% banks have averaged around 8%, so would have an impact on high LVR lending.
You sold that first one too soon and will miss out on 100K.
@ebisu
You could say that but I'm in the game again using my profits. I'm up 100k on my new place, to be built. Only put in 50k deposit, nothing else until settlement.
When it goes up to 200k later this year I'll sell it.
Exactly, you cannot leverage your gains if you haven't realised them.
Trading property like stocks I didn’t actually think this was common but probably far more wide spread than people realise.
@Lord, it's rampant where I am.
a revive of socialism and even communism will take place in the next five yrs around the world.
Although I know that will be an almighty hand-brake on dealing with our real existential crisis of climate change I suspect you are right.
I think you're right. Once you reach a certain level of inequality social unrest is inevitable.
Property investors would cry 'communism!' if the gov't banned them from buying any more houses -- but they'll never consider that the alternative might be forced repossession at gunpoint ten years down the line if we persist on the current trajectory.
Impossible, we gave back all our guns.
They also don't think that we might move towards a South African society where you live behind barbed wire and are mugged at traffic lights. Noice!
All that matters are the capital gains....pretty one dimensional view of success and happiness.
I have some advice for Govt regarding sorting out house price disaster - Go hard! Go early! (Too late for the later so only option is go harder).
The plan for dealing with the housing crisis is well known, it's Kiwi-build. Now that's sorted we can get down to the serious business of raising social benefits and government wages out of line with inflation and generally dishing out Aroha. All bad news is to be dealt with by a sliding scale of frown from "I'm just squeezing one out" to "I think I have squeezed one out!"
Haha
And now applying LVR restrictions will fuel more FOMO, driving prices up as they all try to get in before October. Then the rest will saunter in over Summer as normal.
Just updated my spreadsheet and it is both satisfying and daunting to see the monthly increases. Doesn’t matter which online value I check, it’s all pretty much the same. Up, up and away.
I think we're all over-reacting.
The median house prices for Auckand by BT from June to July actually fell 0.72% which is neither what anyone would call a strong growth least to call it spectacular. The retreat for this is not an outlier and growth actually looks feint compared to 2014.
Looks like a smooth moderation in motion this time of the year and there's no need to throw toys into the housing market.
RBNZ and the Finance minister can sleep well tonight- it's all just a drama on the social media.
I hope that your comment is ironic. The data shows patchy changes but overall it's still a strong market. Where our holding is for instance, in Papakura has gone up 6.7% in 3 months. I can see a scramble to get on the property ladder by those who see themselves being locked out by incoming DTI legislation so I suspect the latest moves by Labour / RBNZ will cause a 3-6 month surge in demand followed by a stagnation after Spring / Summer.
Interesting comment and seems very plausible.
Yes and mid winter.
I own a couple of modest rentals as a disclaimer and have had good tenants for 7 years now. We had ambitions of using any equity to help out our 3 kids when their time came and purchasing them was to insulate us against any big swings in value. I just don't know what to make of this madness. I'd be more than happy to put some of the (winnings) aka profits when we sell as tax given the ridiculous money they have made. We are in this position (like many I suspect) by serendipity and so slicing some off to try and correct the mess that has been made by the price romp seems more like rationale thinking than socialism.
That is one way of trying to even the pitch and I commend you for it however the person carrying the load is not relieved by this action. The FHB is still facing an insurmountable cost in regards to getting into the market. Perhaps if the tax you were suggesting was given directly to young qualified FHB's that would be more effective?
At the risk of "when I was...", in th 90's in the UK they had an excellent initiative which was rent to buy. The government built and owned the house and the tenant could opt into an arrangement where there rent could buy the house over time too. I had some friends who managed to stay in London because of it. The tax could help build such houses. It's a win win. Helps just FHB's if criteria to get on are tailored well, new housing stock, and state houses that are well looked after. If the government was really smart the capital outlay could be turbo charged by allowing private investors to inject capital given innovative funding / return parameters with the government simply acting as a guarantor. All possible with a little imagination!
This is a good idea. I have personally run rent to buy schemes using my own capital. Out of the three we did, two went well and those families benefited from about 400k of capital growth during the time we were working with them. One could not stay stable on their rent and we had to part ways. While I am pleased there are a couple of families out there in their own homes which could not have got into the market any other way I would not do it again. Having the government do it is the best way.
Seems like going forward buying houses will be same as winning the lotto in NZ..
And who already had a portfolio is winning it on monthly basis.
No action can change the above graph to south, do what ever you want to do, it's a hopeless case.
Labour=Failure
Rhymes also
Hope prices continue to rise. As part of a big cohort of FHB who were able to buy these last few months, I would like to see my only asset appreciate in value.
You hope more kiwis are financially ruined so that you can feel a little bit more smug?
We live in a post-hope world.
And we wonder why we have such bad mental health and suicide stats here. We're not actually that nice - we think we are and like to think we're 'kind' but on this inside, we're actually quite hostile to one another (which in my experience of dealing with people is based upon a lack of hope for a good future which in turn breads fear and dread and all of the other darkside personality traits - including extreme greed/selfishness).
Good comment, we know the data supports this view but we have the cognitive dissonance on full strength. Despite not actually doing anything by almost any measure to correct this problem, and while actively trying to avoid actually doing anything about this problem (GBF) Jacinda is still really nice right?
Ohhhhhh, that explains why your comments on here are so emphatically against any possibility of a housing correction. I initially thought maybe you were an investor with decades old blinkers on or something.
As a FHB from 2017, housing appreciation is nice but you still have to borrow if you want use the equity. The house doesn't grow or shrink in size depending on the valuation direction.
Translation: "F*** you, i've got mine"
Yes - this sums up the modern kiwi psyche, but while voting for the Adern 'be kind' propaganda.
Political parties doesn't have high standard when it comes make policies for housing but labour have set the new low.. Doubling the house price just in 4 years.
Incompetence at it's peek..
As a recent FHB you don't feel empathy for those who can't buy?
I think that question should be directed to the Government that you all voted in no?
As many FHB's have finally been able to make a purchase after saving the last 5-10 years for a deposit; paying at current peak prices, I think it's normal to think that we wouldn't want house prices to "crash" like many of the ignorant and non-sensible comments I see in all the replies. Who in their right mind wishes for something like that? You do know a "housing crash" causes ripples effects to the economy right? Consumer confidence will be lost, which then leads to jobs being lost.
We should be focused on the key question (that i've been asking myself these last 10 years JUST to save a deposit to buy a first home), which is, how do we help FHB achieve their dream of only a home. Wishing for a housing crash is complete nonsense and is essentially wishing NZ goes down the drain even further.
If so many people are so against NZ and the way things are run, no one is holding you back in staying here. The EXIT is that way, feel free to leave as you want. Problem is, they always say it, but never do it. Be thankful you're in a country that at the very least has no COVID issues. I've seen families, friends pass away because countries just can't contain it.
NSC sales down 15% in July compared to July 20. Average price up over 30% in past year. Connected?
Take a look at full report to see which areas showing sales increase or decrease. Most are flat
That average price graph is just begging for OCR rises
I think its fair to say that if you're under 30 and/or don't own a house (and probably don't have rich parents), NZ is turning into a form of state sponsored oppressed hell.
That's exactly what it is.
There are plenty of people out there that have studied hard, worked hard, saved hard, paid off their student debt, made great strides in their careers and done everything right who are still watching helplessly as the cost of a lousy kiwi home is engineered skywards by our kleptocrat political class by many tens of thousands of dollars month, month after month, year after year without end in sight. And it's been going on their entire adult lives.
To rub salt in the wound there is an cohort of sneering and condescending dropkicks cheering it all on on from the sidelines, who only though accident of birth happened to be in the right place at the right time to benefit from it.
The way this country operates beggars belief.
Crazy right...
This is a reality for people I know. As for those who think it is funny or simply have an emotional disability please just try and tune them out.
I believe there is a large group of people (I am one) who despite being born at the right time to simply sleep-walk into this position would be motivated and are motivated to get behind a change. I am a long time National voter as were my parents, the only reason I voted Labour in 2017 was on the promise of action on housing. We know how this has turned out. The still incredibly high popularity of this government confirms that people are just not capable of seeing a way out. Right now I would vote for a blind donkey rather than Labour. Last time I voted TOP as a protest vote.
One day there will be someone we can vote for that will not lie to us, someone capable, one day...
Homes.co.nz says the value of our house has increase by over $4000 a week over the last year.
I wish I could just have that $4k credited into my bank account each week
If you are over 60... https://youtu.be/KHudlrfBghE?list=TLGG48psfIeC5CswNDA4MjAyMQ
You could sell it and move to somewhere cheaper.
As a property investor I think Prime Minister Ardern and her government are such inspiration to younger generations. She shows that you can be tough on the poor and working class, yet still be loved by all. Your choice of major political party next election will be New National and Old National. It's broken and it's beautiful.
This reflect that Orr and Robertson have screwed FHB and now are trying to throw FHB out of the market.
This is the result of LEAST REGRET policy by Orr in April last year and than again by following the policy of WAIT AND WATCH early this year.
All is done intentionally as definitely he is is no @#$
Read Bernard Heckay observation :
https://thekaka.substack.com/p/dawn-chorus-rbnz-move-will-hit-first?tok…
What cant there be a stamp duty on anyone with more than a single house. Tweaked to the point that the same house will cost them more than the FHB
Exactly. Not rocket science one would think. Especially for a 'Labour' party with a majority...
Traitors.
Trying to "Fix" the current situation with yet another tax is not going to fix the problem. Also if nothing else Labour will always look at any effects on its voting block and despite what they have said their actual actions are that if you don't own a house we don't really care about you.
Have Barfoot&Thompson paid back their Covid wage subsidy yet?
They were the first in line last April and totally creamed it in commission ever since - pigs round a trough
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