Barfoot & Thompson sold 80 of 226 properties the agency marketed for sale by auction last week, giving an overall clearance rate of 35.4% (see table below).
Highlights included the mortgagee auction of a leasehold six bedroom, three bathroom terrace house in Onehunga which went for $105,000, a refurbished three bedroom house in Massey that sold for $620,000, a 404 square metre rear section in Henderson that sold for $398,000, and a four bedroom house on an 819 square metre section in St Heliers that fetched $3.06 million.
The full results of auctions conducted by Barfoot & Thompson last week with the prices achieved on the properties that were sold and details of the properties that didn't sell, are available on our Auction Results page.
| Venue | Sold* | Not sold* | Total |
| On site | 7 | 19 | 26 |
| Manukau | 10 | 28 | 38 |
| Shortland St, 7 March | 6 | 13 | 19 |
| Shortland St, Mortgagee. | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Whangarei | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Shortland St. 8 March | 23 | 27 | 50 |
| Pukekohe | 6 | 8 | 14 |
| Shortland St. 9 March | 5 | 7 | 12 |
| North Shore | 17 | 28 | 45 |
| Shortland St. 10 March | 5 | 15 | 20 |
| Total | 80 | 146 | 226 |
| *Sold includes properties sold under the hammer or by 5pm the following day. Not sold includes properties remaining unsold by 5pm the day after the auction and properties that were withdrawn from sale or had their auction date postponed. | |||
109 Comments
Once sentiment reverses in a market it's very difficult to change. How many "investors" will want a 3% gross yield on a decreasing value asset in a rising interest rate environment?
Remember, more than 40% of Auckland residential properties are being sold to "investors".
And we wonder why we have a problem - its normal for the average boomer to own their own home and one or two rentals....you guys have all lost your minds!
Why can't people be content to own their own home and make houses available for other kiwis to own - instead of making them slaves in their own country and then gloating about how tremendous it is to take away half of someone elses weekly salarly in rent?
I think as a country we have a John Key hangover. Like John, too many of us have become smug, narcissistic and so focused on money we've forgotten how to be good human beings who actually look after one another. Time for change.
Hey Kermit; Just go on to TradeMe property section, select Auckland and hit search it will list the total number of listings on the right hand side above property listings.
At least this give a pretty good indication of what's happening with the market. You can also put in regional searches if you want to track certain areas such as Auckland's Northshore etc...
And if you want to break down things even further; use the Key word search to look for Urgent Sales or Mortgagee Sales to see what's happening.
It's getting really obvious now that this is having a huge influence on Auckland's property market, just look at the timing: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-26/world-s-biggest-real…
Foreign buyers are definitely a factor, but mortgage rates are probably the single most important factor. Not only have two year rates risen to 4.8%, but people are now expecting them to rise further. Before they were 4.3% and people were expecting them to keep falling.
On the face of it, and, based on that Bloomberg report, if the increased offerings are a result of sales previously signed and deposits paid, have now fallen over and are now re-appearing back on the market then a lot of security deposits have been forfeited. Not a bad earn.
Well according to the Interest.co.nz article, over the past 4 months, the Auckland median house prices have decreased by 68 K or 7.8 % (http://www.interest.co.nz/property/86461/aucklands-median-house-price-d…). That is a loss of about $550 per day everyday for the past 4 months. You could only expect this to continue for the time being given that listings keep climbing, interest rates are increasing and the effects of the LVR rules continue to have their effect
Article from 3 March
Barfoot & Thompson sold 556 properties last month, down on January's 629, December's 721 and November's 947. Last year's busiest month was in March when 1341 properties were sold, followed by May's 1306.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business-around-new-zealand/news/article.cfm?…
I wait for the advertorial in a month or so saying March is traditionally a slow month
..south is getting hammered
I think it is and it isn't. Looking at two properties that sold in Papatoetoe on the list I see that one sold for 565K while the homes.co.nz mid range prediction was 690K. Yet the sales history shows the last sale was 174K in 1997 and the 2014 CV is 401K. This means the owner sold it for a profit of 391K and 155K over CV (39% above CV). That's a good result really.
Another Papatoetoe property sold for 1285K and the homes.co.nz high prediction was 1095K The CV was 610K which meant it sold over 100% above CV. That one is likely subdividable and sold to a landbanker/developer.
We are likely to see some interesting results over the coming months. Prime properties selling quite high and ugly or over priced places languishing.
Leverageup - that is quite a tricky one. It really does need a ruler run over it to see if the Residential – Mixed Housing Suburban Zone classification will allow it to have two houses built on the section. I suspect it will sell for somewhere between 1.4M - 1.5M. Homes.co.nz high figure is 1.275M. I have never been one to 'develop' properties but if it has potential to turn into two properties it will sell for a premium, even in today's uncertain times.
I like how you always paint a rosy picture Zac but a lot has happened since you were forced to sit in the naughty corner. Now we're all having to face reality of the situation an that is that property prices are headed south for the long term. You can largely thank Mr Trump for that one. ;)
A large part of the 'Trump Effect' has been to cause China to clamp down on Capital Flight causing them to drastically cut down of purchasing overseas property. These were the top end Investors but they have now gone since China enforced their Capital Flight restrictions since Oct 2016 but they really clamped down very forcefully in Dec 2016 as part of their anti money laundering program.
http://boingboing.net/2017/01/28/chinas-capital-controls-are.html
And yes we do have Mr Trump to thank for it with his trade tariff threats! I could almost start to like him if it wasn't that he's a complete and utter loon.
CJ099 - I am still a Trump supporter. I see it in a more long term way and that is Trump seeks to conserve the West and what makes the West so desirable. We are in our privileged position because of how we were in the past. Unchecked immigration will ultimately degrade our investments and make our cities and lands less desirable.
Some very intelligent people are Trump supporters:
Trump is a German Idealist
There won't be any environment to enjoy, read this
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/this-tiny-program-keeps-our-coasts-safe…
OldMarmalade that would be true if you just left the house idle all that time. But what about the rental return? Another 4%! So the return is more like 8%.
If you borrowed the entire sum of 174K and over that time the rent covered the mortgage and expenses, which I reckon it would, then that 390K was a total win. None of your own money down and just a bit of management needed. You get 4% of someone else's money. How great is that?
Picture Perfect in DGZ! Just listed today.
Homes.co.nz estimate around $3m but likely to sell for $4m - It's a bargain!
http://www.trademe.co.nz/property/residential-property-for-sale/auction…
Double-GZ the street view looks quite interesting. It explains the sloping ceilings in two of the bedrooms:
Yes the garage and that entire wing behind it was added on a few years ago. I watched the whole process from start to finish. Took over a year - very slow indeed but it looks like a quality renovation for a character home on a full site and in a great location, plus DGZ :-) I'll definitely be there this weekend for the open homes!
I never quite realised how ridiculous the fancy suburbs in Auckland were. You really think that is worth $4 million? Absolute insanity, people just have too much money. You can retire comfortably on less than half that almost anywhere else in the country. "Fresh colour palette throughout" looks more like 50 shades of (boring) grey. To each their own I guess.
How could one have reasonably expected the Auckland market not to have slowed down by now?
It's foreseeable that the current quiet patch will continue through the rest of the year - over-indebtedness, increasing interest rates, bank lending cut-backs, forthcoming election, LVR's, general nervousness etc...
In fact, it's quite possible that a steady decline in prices will be a feature of the Auckland market for the next 3-4 years but I don't anticipate a crash as such. More of a "soft landing" scenario.
I visited about a dozen open homes in central Auckland last weekend. Viewer numbers are a fraction of what they were 6-12 months ago. And the sense of urgency among them has vanished. Viewers now seem to have adopted a cautious "wait and see" approach.
Auckland buyers: hang on a bit longer and you could do quite a bit better......
I agree that it won't do any harm to wait and choose carefully unless you see something you really, really want. A young friend of my wife was desperate to buy a house last year and I advised to wait until now but they didn't. It would actually be more fun now as the choices would be better and you could make reasonable offers knowing something else is likely to turn up. It should be a lot less stressful for buying an entry level house except you have the stress of wondering if you will lose money buying too soon. I guess it is never without stress.
I suppose if you are buying a house to live in to expand your family then it wouldn't matter so much if you're going to enjoy a healthy capital gain or suffer financial loss. I know for a fact that we can't measure/quantify a happy family life and having a place to call home, and that is equivalent to wealth and richness.
I actually found a hot market really depressing as an assistant to a buyer. It's no fun at all when everyone wants to buy the one house you are interested in and then you eventually compromise on something you didn't really want to buy.
So I say people should enjoy it if there gets to be more selection and houses stay on the market longer.
Agree! Buyers should enjoy it while they can before the next property boom cycle arrives and blows us away...and it IS coming! http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/90441293/americans-leave-trumps-us-to-c…
Have you actually read the article - my guess is no. The article says that from 8 Nov 2015 – 31 Jan 2016 100 US citizens applied for New Zealand citizenship and between 8 Nov 2016 – 31 Jan 2017 170 US citizens applied for New Zealand citizenship - this is hardly an earth shattering increase. It also makes makes an assumption that the increase is due to Trump being elected . It is bad use of statistics.
Exactly. High property prices are actually a good thing for the majority of New Zealanders. There has been quite a trend lately to elevate the plight of "ne'er do wells" in our society and push for radical socialistic policy changes that will equalise everyone. People are even stating that young people who get a little parental support are "privileged" and so on. This is utter nonsense. Most New Zealanders are high achievers and it is these people we should be championing.
Im going to have to respectfully disagree here guys. NZ cant get richer by buying and selling property to one another. As property prices rise, resources are diverted away from productive parts of the economy and into housing as the main "investment vehicle" of the masses. The young are forced to take on larger and larger mortgages that will take longer and longer to pay off. That has many unintended consequences, maybe young parents cant give their kids the quality of education they would like, or baby boomer parents have a lower quality of life in retirement as they try and support the younger generation into property. The majority of property owners own one family home, bought before 2012 and so wouldnt be affected by a 30-40% drop in property prices (which i think would be very helpful). I stress that i dont think that is going to happen, but it would be a good thing for NZ, especially if it was then accompanied with measures that would make residential property a non investment class. The sooner we have no business press focused on the daily movements in residential property the better
High property prices are only a benefit if you have a 'spare' house, or prices have risen in your area more than in an area you want to move to. Otherwise, it's essentially neutral. The negative impacts of high prices are well documented and obvious to anyone willing to spend a minute considering them. So I disagree, high property prices are not a good thing for the majority of New Zealanders.
Eh, this sounds like a perspective that is ignorant of New Zealand's history, being realistic.
The older generations benefited from the housing efforts of previous generations and their governments. That's some history these folk need to brush up on. If it had not been for these efforts, New Zealand's home ownership rate would not have reached the great heights it did in the 80s and 90s before beginning its decline. If it hadn't been for these efforts, the older generations wouldn't have this housing wealth in the first place.
Since then, NZ has been saddled with a generation of politicians and their investor-voters who have changed housing from being about home ownership and security to being about investment.
It's the height of selfishness, really. Inheriting great conditions, changing them to suit your own selfish interest, then claiming to have pulled yourself up entirely by your own bootstraps.
The generations who follow are the ones who bear the brunt of this selfishness, because homes are being pushed out of their reach solely for the financial benefit of investor voters.
It's an absolute strawman built on historical ignorance that then seeks to cast the young generations as ne'er do wells, with an accompaniment of narcissism in those who brand themselves as high-achievers for the particular genius of having being born at the right time to benefit from previous generations' efforts.
The prices sellers are trying to get in Auckland are a scam. With credit tightening the banks aren't supporting the Auckland scam anymore.
People are better off investing rather than buy a house in Auckland. Why be saddled with debt when you can make money instead?
I bet Bill and his cohorts are over the moon. Auckland house prices down, just a few months before the elections. I can hear him now, " National ...cough... has done a spectacular job in making homes more affordable... cough... for FHB, in Auckland.... cough!"
National will win the elections in a landslide victory... just my humble opinion.
Last month the mantra was that it was going to pick up this month...
The paradigm has changed. It used to be that "next" month the market was going to top out and start declining. Now, it is "next" month that the market will stop the decline and resume climbing.
Anyone who has been in RE for more than just the last 15 years of boom understands what happens when the number of listings increase substantially and number of sales decrease substantially. Maybe the last few months are just a funny little 40% speed bump. Maybe not... time will tell.
Kemistry - unsure if you're being sarcastic or not. If not...:
Your statement is a little bit like: 'Hey guys, it's 1929/1987/2000/2008. If was a gambling man (which I'm not) but regardless I'm putting my life savings on shares. Now is a good time to buy'.
We've just seen the most incredible rise of house prices (price inflation that will stand out for decades, or perhaps centuries to come) and you're willing to say that now is a good time to buy?
No no no. You couldn't be more wrong. Now is a great time to sell (actually the end of last year more likely).
Warren Buffet: Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful.
Whether or not people are picking this up - but there's a change in sentiment in NZ society. The shift from greed to fear is gaining momentum.
That's exactly right. The same applies to other isthmus suburbs. If you look closely at the stats yesterday from REINZ the Auckland Central median has actually gone up both year on year as well as month by month. Auckland median was only dragged down by South, Rodney & outer region.
Is your 2% logic not flawed? It's 2% of houses that are in auck that are up for sale. That is still 100% of houses that are up for sale in auck.
Granted,you made the point earlier, that this is auck wide. You could look at it at a suburb level.but the different burbs are buying and selling of each other except for those that are coming in from abroad with cash. But according to nick smith that is 3% (nationally?) But in that case he says that is negligible.
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