There was an air of buoyancy at this week's Ray White City Apartments' auction, with nine Auckland CBD apartments put on the block and seven selling under the hammer.
The first apartment offered was in the Sugartree complex on Union St.
It was a 43 square metre, one bedroom unit with a 10 square metre balcony and had been scheduled for auction next week, but that was brought forward when a pre-auction offer of $510,000 was made, which had been accepted unless a higher bid was received at auction. So it was definitely going to be sold.
But when no higher bids were forthcoming it was sold for its pre-auction offer of $510,000.
There was also very competitive bidding for a unit in the Grand Chancellor complex at the bottom of Hobson St , which sold for $618,000. Meanwhile a studio unit in the Heritage Tower complex on Nelson St fetched $295,400.
The cheapest apartment sold was a 59 square metre leasehold unit in the Q City building on City Road which was leased to Housing NZ.
It sold for $92,000 (ground rent currently $6800 a year).
An apartment in the Nova En Scotia building overlooking Myers Park was passed in when the only bidder wouldn't increase his bid past $375,000 and there were no bids for an apartment in the Harbour Green building on Union St.
At Barfoot & Thompson's apartment auction earlier the same day, three properties were offered and one sold under the hammer.
The first property to go under the hammer was an office/warehouse building on Boston Rd in Grafton, which had been partially converted to include a four bedroom apartment and a separate two bedroom apartment.
There was good interest in this property and it sold under the hammer for $2.82 million.
The other two properties were a two bedroom sub-penthouse apartment in Pitt St, which had been advertised as a "short notice auction," and a two bedroom home unit in a street next to Eden Park.
There was only a single bidder for each of them and both were passed in.
The full results of both auctions with the prices achieved on the individual properties that sold and the details of those that didn't, are available on our Auction Results page.
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24 Comments
It has always been expected that new LVR limits would only have an effect for a limited time.
Banks are still wanting to maintain market share, and so they each need to maintain credit growth at 8.7%.
Pumping easy credit to wide-eyed optimists has to continue, at least until the RBNZ provides further constraint.
Either the LVR limits will need to be adjusted down again, or the DTI limit will have to be introduced.
Can't see the government wanting these introduced / changed in election year. No doubt though we need a DTI ratio simply to protect ourselves against all this cheap credit. So people have no self control over what they will spend, if the bank will lend it to them.
Seems like it, house values actually hadn't dropped I reckon. People won't sell under government value unless they are forced. Interest rates are still low, strong NZ economy. Supply is coming in the urban areas that are affordable to New Zealanders. Hopefully next government cycle they do something about immigration policy then we're heading in the positive direction.
I have been keeping a daily trend of both the listing on TM prop and Realestate.co just to compare since mid Feb. They are both up about 700 up in net listing in the last 21 days!
I think the pressure in the market is palpable at this point and might get really messy as least in the lower end.
Many people are still in denial:
Barfoots Auctions this week -
Bays Area: 12 out of 25 lots sold = 48% success under the hammer
Manukau: 10 out of 38 lots sold = 26% success under the hammer
In 2015-16 success rates were consistently between 70-90% under the hammer.
No 48% for the Bays Area is a really good result. We are aware that South Auckland needs some correcting. People can try auction and then go on to selling by negotiation. It really isn't a big deal, not the end of the world if it doesn't sell at auction. A really lazy way to sell. We haven't even got to the stage of having contracts that depend upon the buyer selling their own home first. Auctions are a hot market thing and with theses sorts of results I would rate the market as still warm.
Rubbish Zachery, 48% is not good for the Bays.
I used to go to the Barfoots auctions every Wednesday morning mid 2015 and they were consistently selling between 70-80% success rates under the hammer - and that was mid winter.
48% is not good when judged against selling success rates over recent years.
Ask people who have tried to borrow from a bank recently and you'll find out what's really going on...
....people are struggling to get finance, even for minor alterations.
Most houses sold by negotiation in the good old days. Banks may be more willing to lend if we went back to sales contracts that depended on a buyer having an unconditional contract on his own house.
Auctions that sell 70-80% of their houses are indicative of a hot market. It can't stay that way forever. Considering the general attitude around here lately I still maintain that 48% sold is pretty good....
The problem with apartments is some are leasehold (which you avoid like the plague), and banks won't lend if they are less than 40m2. I've been following the apartment market in Welly CBD for a few months and you won't generally get a 1 bedroom 40m2 one for less than $250,000.
48% is average. From what I gather some existing home-owners in the central areas are selling and moving outwards and the government is investing and expanding those areas. High listing will hit peak too and start decreasing. As that happens we expect to see house values increase again. That won't happen till there's a dip/crash in the market (it is due for one soon just like a woman's period lol) and that is likely to happen in this government cycle...
'I wasn't trying to offend. I was using an analogy and I assume most people that post here are males.'
... therefore you felt you could take a dig at women. Thanks, because that's what you did.
As a woman I'm mildly offended and certainly never expected to read it on this site,
but ultimately you're letting us all know you're a plonker.
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