Auction activity appears to be already winding down as the housing market heads towards the Christmas break.
Interest.co.nz monitored 287 residential property auctions around the country last week (26 November - 2 December), down from 307 the previous week.
Of those, 76 sold under the hammer, down from 85 the previous week.
That pushed the overall sales rate down slightly to 26% from 28% the previous week.
Sales appear to be particularly weak in Auckland where the overall sales rate was just 17% last week, down from 26% the week before that.
Conversely, sales rates were much higher in Canterbury at 52% and Central Otago/Lakes at 62%.
When the figures for Canterbury and Central Otago are excluded, the overall sales rate for the rest of the country was 17% last week, the same as for Auckland.
Looking ahead at the Orders of Sale for next week suggests auction numbers will continue to decline until they wind up for the year in a couple of weeks.
Details of the individual properties offered at all of the auctions monitored by interest.co.nz, including the prices of those that sold, are available on our Residential Auction Results page.
The comment stream on this story is now closed.
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54 Comments
good time to buy
Which means someone else sees it as A GOOD TIME TO SELL?
Or perhaps 'good time' overstates it. Maybe it's more a case of "It's not going to get any better for me from here. Best I get out, with my shirt intact, whilst I still can"
not good time to sell
What are all the PI boomers going to talk about round the BBQ this festive season ??? ......nah, nothin' to worry about here, it will all be "back to normal" by next year, anyway if costs go up, I'll just raise the rents ....or the accommodation supplement (taxpayer money!) will help out those out who are more "financially challenged" .....what an absolute croc of sh*t !
..probably the best way to sell the boat, jest ski and Ranger.
Maybe people in the more affluent parts of the country know something we dont and are still on a buying spree. Cashed up rental buyers perhaps? The chart above seems to back up my theory a wee bit.
by Jay Lim | 7th Dec 22, 10:19am
good time to buy
Nope - plenty of depth to that cut when you catch it.
When else has there been a time where sellers are panicking and want to get out? Limited buyers with next to no competition? Opportunity to negotiate and have the upper hand as a buyer?
September 1929
Yes I think it’s potentially a good time to buy, but only if you are patient and pay at least 20% below. Late 2021 peak value.
Warren Buffett once said that it is wise for investors to be "fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”
So the wise were fearful, over the last 2 years, while people were greedily spruiking home prices to the moon.
The wise will start to be greedy once full fear sets in, Winter is coming.
May to Oct 2023
good time to buy
Not sure about that, but it sure is a better time to buy than 12 months ago!
Merry Christmas to all house buyers and sellers!
TTP
All 76 of them!
And a Happy Passover for all those non-sellers!
Um, you just gonna let that anti-Semitic crap through to the keeper, moderators of this site?
Seems like a decent pun. Could you explain whats antisemitic?
I am just happy that my mortgage will be $0 in about 4 weeks!
Yippee Ki-Yay mf big banks!
Goodonya CM ! ....I've been saying for years, its the friggen banks that are doing the best out of all this mess ! It's great to be out of their "grip" !
Merry Christmas, nice one Moa. There is something to celebrate!
It's a great feeling....but just remember ...your local council has taken on massive debt, soon to be hit with higher interest and thus off loaded to you to pay on your rates.
There is no escape from the banks. Sorry.
Congratulations! That's a massive win. It will feel great!
ha ha -- we are talking about end of nov first week in December -- i thought these were traditionally very busy times with people trying to do / complete business prior to Christmas ...... or is that just every year except this one -- where Christmas plunge is coming early just as the Spring surge never came at all!
Wow, tumbleweed show at the Waitakere auction rooms
Why is nobody using the "crash" word, is there still some blind optimism?
I guess many RE agents have two years of inventory/ stock on their books; better than most builders I would imagine, so look at it from that perspective then everything is looking peachy .
Lots of building still happening. East Auckland is getting thousands of homes finished in the next 12 months. Didnt we want lower house prices? the govt was targeted by media saying they exploded house prices during Covid. Is the media going to pat them on the back for reducing house prices. Is complaining about inflation really complaining about falling house prices? is complaining about lack of skilled workers and immigration really complaining about no foreign buyers? Im not sure the younger generation are worried about the crashing housing market.
Why would we pat the government on the back? They got elected by saying they would bring prices down, and then presided over them exploding. They then said prices should keep increasing, just slower, and now they are collapsing.
As for younger Kiwis, the smart ones will see their elder siblings battling dropping values on the houses they owned, the negative equity, stress, divorces and mental illnesses that come with it and probably opt for Australia instead. Pretending to care about younger Kiwis now after the last three years is pretty transparent.
You just don't like the government...it's clouding your thinking. You don't think property speculation has anything to do with it?
Do you have an actual response to the points I've made, instead of 'You just don't like the government'?
Who, by the way, are responsible for the legislation and regulation that governs the environment speculators and investors operate in.
The Government are responsible. You know, the Government that has legislated residential property investment behavior by removing tax deductibility on mortgage interest for Landlords. Even better, they're phasing it in to give investors enough time to settle their affairs. Sounds responsible to me.
In terms of bringing house prices down, JA and this government are best PM and government in living memory.
That's all I will give them credit for. From the AML to Interest Deductibility, they eventually achieved their goal. Although I reckon it's more coincidental than from their actions. Correlation does not = causation.
You give this government credit for unwinding house prices back to 2021 levels? That's like giving credit to someone for patching up their own self inflicted wound.
And house prices are still massively higher than when Ardern took office in 2017.
Didn't she say in 2020 "kiwis want higher house prices". Then "the kiwis" voted for her. Rest assured I did not
Like it or not, they have implemented a large number of policies to bring house prices down which are bearing fruit now. All those policies National and Act want to repeal to continue the ponzi. House prices under labour were fairly flat (at least in Auckland) leading up to 2020 after which the Reserve Bank was responsible for the 40% sugar rush in prices.
The prices being flat in Auckland were mostly due to National strong-arming the Auckland Council into accepting a Unitary Plan they dragged their feet over.
The policies Labour bought in were not as they campaigned on e.g. renegotiating FTAs for foreign buyer bans (instead they exempted countries), rebadging and outbidding FHBs for entry level homes so they could slap a Kiwibuild label on them, totally walking away from CGT, fiddling RBNZ's MPC remits and so on The only unequivocally good thing they did was the MPS in the dying weeks of their first term with the changes to the UPS around density and height limits near transport hub.
If you want to attack National for 'continuing the ponzi' then Labour's poor record of actually following through on things should be held to the same level of scrutiny, and attempting to play the 'RBNZ's fault' card when you've just reappointed the same Governor for another term when many stakeholders were screaming for an independent review first is pretty weak.
I totally agree that Labour's delivery of their pre election policies have been abysmal but whether by design or not they have implemented policies that have made property investment far less attractive which is what should have happened 30 years ago. Just think about how wealthy this country could have been if the money/debt that was invested in property speculation was invested into productive enterprise.
Agree Albert. Credit due - they went after the landlords, the interest tax change on existing houses a smart way of pushing out investors to make way for home buyers.
I'm no labour fan, but FHB's need to think about this one.
Greg - could you please confirm/deny that comments are being removed from this thread without notification? Cheers!
Where did these replies go? ^_-
Down the gurgler, apparently. I'm not sure what's happening here anymore.
It would seem the window of selling in Auckland and retiring to the Hawkes Bay/Taupo/Nelson or the Mount with some cash to spare is now closing.
In the end, its hard to see how any region will emerge unscathed.
Agreed RP. If you cant/wont sell your Akl or Welly house at a super premium then that money cannot flow into retirement locations you list, or even retirement villages. Regions always lag Akl and Well by about six months. Their free fall is about to start.
It was cashed up Aucklanders selling up for idiotic valuations the last 8-10 years and pushing local regional buyers out of the way that scathed the regions in the first place
The people who purchase a property today will probably see themselves in negative equity by this time next year.
Not if they pay cash, lol
Still going negative if house price is dropping. Say someone have 1 mil cash and one year later.
1. Keeping the bank : equity: 1 mil + interest.
2. Buy 1 mil dollars house. A year later house price dropped 10%, equity = 900K
It’s all relative however, those paying cash likely are looking for a home not an investment, and will be subject to buying in the same market they eventually sell down the line. House price drops 10% well you could gasp or brood but it only matters when you sell
Nope, you don't understand equity. Equity is simply assets minus liabilities. So if you you buy a house for $1 Mill with a $800k mortgage your equity is $200k. In order to have negative equity the house value has to fall by more than $200k in our example. If you pay 1 Mill cash, even if the house goes down 50% and is worth $500k, you've obviously lost money, but you're not in negative equity.
I once heard the saying "You are what you're worth minus what you owe"
Auctions...you can here a pin drop. Wait till Feb when rates go up another 75bp.
Good time to sit back and watch the dominoes fall
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