The average selling price of homes sold by Barfoot & Thompson dropped $7,544, or 1%, $711,768 in August from July, but was still well up on the August 2013 average of $647,647.
The median selling price declined $15,000, or 2.3%, to $630,000 in August from $645,000 in July.
The real estate agency, which is by far the biggest in the Auckland residential property market, sold 909 homes in August. This was down 74, or 7.5%, from 983 in July.
The number of homes sold has fallen for each of the last three months.
There was also a sharp drop in the number of new listings the agency received, with 1,129 new homes being signed up in July, which leaving aside new listing for December when they traditionally slow to a trickle, was the lowest number of new listings in any month since January 2012.
That brought the total number of properties available for sale through the agency to 3,226, the lowest number since December last year.
August's average selling price was 1.9% below the all time high of 725,708 hit in March.
Barfoots sold 149 properties for more than $1 million in August, compared with 169 in July.
Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson said the market had fallen into a wait and see mode as the country headed towards this month's general election.
"With new listings for the month at 1,129, a decline of 19.1% on those for July, August was a quiet month in terms of activity," he said.
"It means the normal lift in market activity we see with the approach of spring is still some weeks off."
However he was optimistic about the prospect of a lift in the market later in the year.
"Certainty will return post the election and the final three months of the year are likely to see some greater activity than normal as the regular five month spring/summer pre-Christmas season is compressed into three months of trading," he said.
Barfoot Auckland
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45 Comments
I can remember when they tried this in Australia.....and so it seems can the people at Landlords NZ........
http://www.landlords.co.nz/article/5054/nzpif-slams-labour-s-ring-fenci…
That article is nonsense;
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/08/busting-the-reias-negative-gear…
It's a zonbie concept to create inflation through minimum wage rises and a plethora of other areas controlled by political influence within the economy and the ponzi scheme is in all this created inflation of these policies which will transfer into rents and house prices.....
Every business will have to increase wages under the minimum wage rises that the Green wish to implement which is inflationary......once that wage inflation gets built in prices of goods have to increase, people will spend less and more businesses will start going to the wall......more people will eventually end up on unemployment benefits......rents will have to rise due to all the components that are inflationary being implemented.
You also might like to consider the effects of things NZ Super being tied to inflation so the cost of servicing the over 65's will also increase. So you get more inflation!!!
Graphs like the one's posted in your link from macrobusiness are a nonsense......when other information and issues are not taken into account......graphs like the one's in your link cannot show the lag times from when a policy is implemented to when the rental market has to start to react as a whole. The whole of the rental market will not go out and put up rents the day after policy is implemented.....as the varying debt obligations that each PI is also taken into consideration so they will all be raising rents over different time frames with some unable to raise any rents until the expiry point in the contracts they have negotiated with their tenants. Sometimes these rental contracts can be fixed for 12 months.
Did i mention homeowners? It will have impact on PIs which is one of the factors in the housing price boom we are having. I know a number PIs who are relying on the loses offset against their regular incomes - without that it wouldn't worth their while to be invest in houses. Incidentally, I sold my house in central Auckland to property investor (and the house before that)
Which is why it won't have any significant effect on house prices.
If PIs exit the market the houses will still be occupied, so I don't see how ring fencing or CGT will affect prices much......probably be a postive if prices do drop a bit (10%ish) and help many renters to become homweowners.
"Which is why it won't have any significant effect on house prices"
So how does the policy make houses more affordable?
I can't believe that National hasn't gone on the offensive regarding the CGT; the claim is that it will make houses more affordable where there is no evidence. It's just a tax grab that will be gradually and subtly expanded until it includes the family home and inheritance; just like other countries where a CGT's been introduced
Cause David Cunliffe says so, the rhetoric goes something like, we'll make houses more affordable by introducing a CGT and "smashing" the speculators. So it's not for Moa to explain, it's for David to explain but as JK pointed out recently, DC doesn't really seem to understand his own policy.
Sir Robert Stewart was on Radio National this morning , talking about how he founded and grew Skope Industries in Christchurch ...
... he claimed that the introduction of a CGT would accelerate the selling of businesses by local families , probably to cashed up foreign investors ... as those founders want to avoid the tax , feeling they've paid contributed enough to the community and the taxman's coffers already ...
Yes, that was a good interview from a business builder/innovator.
However he did discuss how govt policy, research funding, tax rules, etc has a big effect on the profitability of these smart manufacturing exporting companies. - they won't develop and thrive in a pure market approach.
http://www.randomhouse.co.nz/books/robert-j-stewart/determined-to-win-9…
geeeez Notaneconomist:
Dunno what youre gripe is. Youve had a pretty good ride for 6 years. Whats your beef?
Politics is a pendulum. At some point some other crowd is gonna get in.
You should have made been making out like a bandit while the sun was shining.
Did you assume your protectors were there forever?
So do you think that a political pendulum is good for NZ and New Zealanders?
I would rather the whole country got to make out like a bandit and had more sunshine.....everytime that pendulum swings another length of tunnel is added.....
The pendulum only swings because of the "Them vs Those" attitude.......it's rather like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.....if you don't get to the root of the problem you're only ever treating the symptoms!!!
Have you ever wondered why the heck I go on about the foundation documents that provide NZ'ers constitutional rights.....it is the legal platform of the citizens over which NO political party is ever meant to step!
The problem with "making out like a bandit" is then the bandits get to pillage those who cannot defend themselves and that includes the eco-system and future generations with impunity.
Pendulum good? yes as long as we dont see extreme swings, the average is then about the middle/centre, where most ppl sit.
Tunnels, yes well there are environmental, popualtion and consumption tunnels which if we dont address and soon we'll find new ones getting added so fast by nature we and our food chain wont be able to cope. At that point we will see an end to the tunnels, one huge brick wall....it wont be pretty.
You can ignore reality with your political blinkers until it hits you, then you cannot,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrJChoxW37s#t=21
regards
I'm seing a completely different set of bandits doing the pillaging to you :-))........
You seem to be an armchair environmentalist critic who has his backside stuck in his seat....have you ever been outside of the great walls of your city incubator?
You keep getting stuck on left, right and centre......it is distracting you from the real picture.....that of democracy and it was never intended that democracy should be mob rule!!
The word "democracy" comes from the Greek words "demos" and "kratia," which literally mean "people power." The modern word "democracy" emerged in 16th century France.
More specifically, "demos" is a reference to "common people," so a democracy etymologically suggests that it is a society that is ruled by the common people. Unlike the common contemporary connotation that democracy references a right of the people to elect leaders, Ezra Pound asserted in "The ABCs of Economics," written in 1933, that democracy is actually a responsibility of the people to protect their rights against the government through the careful selection of their leaders.
http://www.ask.com/question/where-does-the-word-democracy-come-from
A democracy ruled by a majority can be persuded to take away freedoms and property....
Freedom meaning FREE DOMAIN!!!!
So I guess that a new word needs to be coined......Demosdom.....Demos.....meaning People....Dom...meaning Domain.
And Demosdom......has stolen the ancient rights to Freedom and liberty.....as it is mob rule over the people.......
Droughts, like fear, have plagued the planet throughout history......so what is your point???? Perhaps you see me as a wayward target that through salvation I will be reborn......into the Greens Environmentalist Church of World Reformers......good luck with that one.......I am more Environmentally friendly than any Environmentalist that I know.
Interesting how they bring out excuses when markets turn. The month had Easter in it or winter is affecting prices. Last time I checked there was a winter in most years. I suspect the market has turned. Asian buyers -how many of them are underwater now the US$ has taken off and most forecasters have it heading into the 0.7s soon? We can convince ourselves we are a well developed nation but the bloodshed that is about to occur in the dairy industry will soon remind us that we ride on the cows back still.
Cetainty after the elections - the way things are going we will have National / NZF in a coalition and there is nothing certain in that WRT house prices.
If you have a plaster house sell it now - you won't be able to give them away soon.
Meanwhile across the ditch
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/the-economy/house-price-boom-m…
If you paid fullprice for an Auckland property 18 months ago, you've probably made at least $100,000. Well done!!
Anyone who is smart enough, knows to sell their house in summer when the suns out and people want to move in before Christmas or before the school year starts. Auckland will continue to grow for the next 1-2 years - don't you worry about that.
DIY - question I raised was about Asian investors and they certainly pay full price and some. The foreign exchange risk must be looming large for them unless its dirty money and they don't care. NZ/US is currently at 0.83 from a high of 0.88 and the BNZ is forecasting a continual slide to 0.67 in 2016. With the pressure coming from possible coalition partners the Asian Chinese story might be unravelling.
For some of them its hide (maybe dirty) money abroad and in foreign property seems to be a "good" way.
At some point, yes we'll see a correction in the exchange rate due to some large and drastic event such as peak oil, or GFC mk2. That event however will see investors running [back] to tthe USD. So sure NZD will drop but the (say) Chinese currency should also be impacted in a similar way to the NZD.
regards
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