Barfoot & Thompson has started 2025 with a surge in new listings and total stock for sale, while selling prices headed lower.
The real estate agency, which is the biggest in the Auckland market, received 1361 new listings in January, the highest number for the month since 2021.
Sales also pushed higher, with 700 sales becoming unconditional in January, the highest number for the month since 2022.
However, the total stock of properties for sale was also up sharply, rising to 5383. That's a 14% compared to January last year, putting total stock for sale at its highest level for the month of January since 2011.
The rise in stock was accompanied by a fall in selling prices.
Barfoot's average selling price in January was $1,053,446, down $133,016 (-11.2%) compared to December, which was the lowest it has been in any month of the year since October 2020.
January's median selling price of $950,000 was down $50,000 (-5%) compared to December..
The combination of lower prices and rising stock levels adds further strength to the growing mountain of evidence the 2025 housing market will be strongly in buyers' favour.
"The focus of buyers in January was the lower price segments of the market with 56 per cent of our sales in the month taking place in the under $1 million market," Barfoot & Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson said.
"Our average number of monthly sales in the under $1 million market during 2024 was 51 per cent," he said.
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93 Comments
If you actually read the article you will see you misrepresent what it says.
If you read the article you'd note the median is down 50k as well.
Should be corrected to
If you read the article you'd note the median sale price is down 50k as well.
Median sales, not median price.
January's median selling price of $950,000 was down $50,000 (-5%) compared to December.
That only indicates people are buying below median properties.
As usual you are twisting data to fit your narrative.
Actually if anything these prices are still artificially too high as if sales were at normal levels (ala 2015 to 2019) much more price discovery would be happening and the median even lower.
By the way HPI for December looked abysmal too if that is your fallback.
I know you are mad that your equity is being beaten up but gotta call a spade a spade.
I can recall one commentator on here warming repeatedly that unless FHB purchase before Xmas they will have missed this cycle and be locked out of the market. Be careful who you listen to.
Price could keep falling all this year with buying conditions improving for FHB as prices drop, interest rates drop a bit more (no expecting much more) and their deposits increase while more stock keeps coming into the market.
Don’t be quick. The best time to buy a house is not always yesterday. Sometimes patience does pay.
Is is actually impressive, even if perverse, how hard the government and RBNZ have worked to keep it going this long. Auckland was already recognized internationally as being in a bubble in 2006 - and the government allowed that to spread to the rest of the country.
Then again, when they recieve multiples more than the average earner, and own multiples more houses, it's not surprising.
MPs salaries should be indexed to other public servants - like teachers, police and nurses.
In the bible it says to love thy enemy. Perhaps to find peace Nifty you could trying sending love to those you disagre with instead of sending hate towards them in nearly every comment on this forum (DGM this..DGM that…DGMs are wrong…DGMs won’t like this).
I’ll send you my love via this forum and hope you find peace in a world full of doom gloom merchants who want an affordable housing for themselves or for their children.
Second leg down I'd say. Recovery is still a long way off with no obvious reason for one in sight.
Is anyone involved in policy doing any actual research and analysis to prepare NZ for the possibility of further dramatic falls? Or is 'talking up the market' just too important?
Any genuine ideas here for what we might do if confronted with the kind of past falls seen in Ireland, Japan, Spain, etc? Some kind of policy to protect homeowners without necessarily bailing out investors and speculators for example?
Without comparison of type: by the numbers he's mostly right.
Oz median is ~10k higher than NZ, and average ~40k.
But I only say mostly right because these numbers are only nominally 1-4% dearer, which doesn't make them "much" more expensive.
But take incomes into account, and the type of property, and Oz is much cheaper. (Their median earner would be in our upper quartile).
They only seem more expensive to someone locked onto a NZ-earnings perspective.
They are far dearer in the Cities than NZ without doubt.
Australia obviously much larger and the ones in the wop wops drag the average down majorly.
For example, you can buy an apartment in NZ city for 700k or less, go to Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane and you will be paying a million plus unless you are miles out.
At the end of the day if you think things are better in Oz, then go and check it out.
The Ozzies are all complaining about everything over there you only have to watch Sky News Australia.
On average they are paying on average $50k more interest than they were previously, so you have to gross $70k more be in the same position.
Of course you can not compare Auckland with Sydney for lifestyle and I have been saying for ages that Auckland is not a place to live for a good lifestyle.
The thing is that people that live in Auckland believe that it is so good when things have definitely deteriorated over the last decade or so.
I do not see Auckland as the measurement of the prices of houses in NZ as we all know that is not what they crack it up to be.
One of the Aussie parties had an interesting monetary proposal for this. If more welfare must be handed out, they suggested it was important to avoid it simply being more welfare to property. Thus, the proposal was something along these lines:
- An equal lump sum to every adult, in specific formats / conditions on purpose. E.g. let's say $100k. Created by the usual money printers.
- For property owners, this would be immediately applied to reduce the debt on their property.
- For renters / non-owners, this would be - if I remember correctly - in the form of some government bond or other. Something along these lines.
The details are hazy, I'd have to search it out again, but they essentially trying to avoid the massive welfare wealth transfer that occurred through FLP and similar over COVID (shoveling $10 billion of taxpayer money at property, reducing the value of wages and savings). They were aiming to benefit all not just property owners, and to use the money printing to at the same time reduce the amount of debt and cancel that money back out of circulation...The details in my memory are very sketchy, unfortunately.
Reality is that the prices are still well out of kilter for affordability and value for what you are getting in Auckland and has been fir a long time.
Just doesnt make sense to be paying Auckland prices inflated by immigration .
Posters continue to go on about dropping housing prices but far from the truth in the happiest city in Nz, Christchurch.
Yes at the bottom Nifty1..... I will tell you when I think we are there.
Do a 3month rolling average of a decent data set (weighted or not, maybe your desired quartile medium or just HPI medium), if its positive for 6 months in a row, its a good sign. Using technical analysis can help take the emotion out of trading.
Then access current taxation and regulation to determine what the recovery will possibly look like.
Also access if you are better buying in an offshore market.
Property has done well, perhaps its not time to chase the dragon.
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