The heat in the housing market has seen record numbers of properties being brought to auction in Auckland.
The city's biggest real estate agency, Barfoot and Thompson, has 311 auctions booked this week. Last week it was 322. To put those numbers in context, Auckland's biggest auction week last month saw 334 properties under the hammer - and that was counting all the agencies.
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Barfoot and Thompson auctions manager Campbell Dunoon said that buyer demand had built up a “head of steam” since the country came out the first lockdown in May.
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“In past years, November is the downward run to Christmas, but all the indications are that December bookings are up,” he said.
Barfoot and Thompson is on track to surpass the near-1000 auctions it carried out in October, and eclipse the more than 1300 sales it recorded for the month - its strongest in years.
The surge in properties being brought to auction hasn't had any downward effect on price, with Auckland's median price passing $1 million for the first time last month, and more bidders competing for properties.
Dunoon said publicity about auction success was bringing more listings to the market, with vendors no longer hesitating.
Barfoot and Thompson recorded its strongest sales month in four years last month. Photo / Ted Baghurst
“It’s a broad swathe of property – lots of stock for investors and first home buyers down south, plus homes for aspirational downsizers.”
Dunoon said his litmus test for the Auckland market was the performance of brick and tile cross-lease units. “That’s been my test. A couple of years ago, they were getting $750,000, now it’s more like $1 million.”
At the first round of Barfoot and Thompson auctions this week, buyer demand was evident. A smart and solid ex-state house at 27 Kiwitea Street, in Sandringham, achieved $1.527 million, $200,000 above the reserve, and a brand new five-bedroom townhouse at 47B Clonbern Road, in Remuera, fetched $3.2 million after the auction was brought forward. Houses in Auckland's south east, around Botany and Dannemora, were achieving $1.6 million to $1.845 million.
While the resurgence in the market is keeping auctioneers busy, auction numbers are still some way off the records achieved during the last market peak. According to REINZ, the most auctions held in a single week in Auckland were 1077, in the first week of April 2015.
Bidders drove the price of 27 Kiwitea Street, in Sandringham, to $1.527 million. Photo / Supplied
Bayleys national auction manager Conor Patton said that auction volumes for this year were still only about two-thirds of what they were between 2015 and 2017.
“But I can’t remember a time when we’ve had this many auctions brought forward, sometimes in the first week [of going on the market], particularly in Auckland. Our October figures for Auckland were 116 percent up on October last year, nationwide it was 30 per cent up.”
Patton said Bayleys' Auckland bookings for December were already up 60 percent on last December, with more bookings expected to come in over the next couple of weeks. However, he did expect the market to hit pause from Christmas to the end of January, as very few vendors wanted to go to market until after the summer holidays.
Harcourts national auction manager Aaron Davis agreed the heat in the market was leading to a higher number of auctions. “Everyone knows it is heaving," he said.
“November year to date is up 62 percent on November last year. We sold 547 properties under the hammer in October and November is looking even bigger.”
Harcourts managing director Bryan Thomson said that almost 40 percent of its vendors had chosen to sell by auction in October, with that number climbing to 50 percent in Auckland and Christchurch. He expected the number to grow through the peak selling season between now and March.
Ray White New Zealand said its auctions for this month - 768 auctions scheduled for Auckland alone - had already beaten the total for November 2019. This week the company has 169 auctions scheduled around the country.
