The prices on almost 5000 listings have been slashed in the past three months as more owners get realistic about their property’s worth in the current market.
The owners of a property on Stanley Road in Glenfield, in Auckland, are so committed to selling their house that they are slashing the price by $50,000 a week until it is sold. The price has already dropped by $350,000 since it was listed for $1.949 million at the end of April.
And it is not the only house price being marked down - almost five times more real estate listings have had their price altered by an average 3.95% in the three months ending May 31, 2022 compared to the same period last year.
Real estate agents made changes to 15% of all residential listings on OneRoof during the same three-month period with almost 50% of those corrections relating to Auckland properties, OneRoof analysis shows.
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Across the country - including all parts of Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Wellington and Canterbury – listings can be found with significant price reductions while others are being marketed as “below CV”. Agents often credit “motivated vendors” as the reason for the price drop.
In the last three months, the price was altered on 2379 listings in Auckland, followed by 597 in Waikato, 485 in the Bay of Plenty, 279 in Canterbury and 272 in Wellington.
While, the Central North Island, Taranaki and Wairarapa saw very few changes to their listing prices.
Northland had the biggest change in listing price dropping by an average 5%, followed by Southland down 4.56%, Bay of Plenty 4.5%, Waikato 3.8% and Auckland 3.47%.
Wallace Stratton agent Stefan Powney, who is marketing the Stanley Road property, said the owners were really committed to selling so the price would keep dropping by $50,000 increments until it either sold or until further notice.
The strategy behind this type of campaign, he said, was to help the owners find where the premium price in the market was at the moment.
“A lot of the time what people are doing is they are dropping the price and they are dropping it below where the market is and they are leaving money on the table for their owners.”
The property was first listed at the end of January, and relisted on April 21 at $1.949m. The price for the four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 1328sqm is already down to $1.599m.
Powney said the type of properties experiencing the majority of price drops were those targeting developers who now couldn’t pay as much as they were last year due to falling prices for new builds and the increasing price of construction. Lodge managing director Jeremy O’Rourke said within the last month the Hamilton-based agency had started highlighting listings with the words ‘price updated’ because it could make a difference about whether people considered the property.
This home on Aotea Street, in Orakei, Auckland, is advertised as having a "huge price drop". Photo / Supplied
“What we were finding is people might have seen the property and might have overlooked it, but if it’s a different price that may make a difference to whether they are interested or not. So, it’s just really bringing some awareness that the property has been updated.”
A property at 3/44 Grandview Road in Nawton has dropped to $699,000, another on nearby Dey Street is now priced at $685,000 and a house on Kowhai Street also had its price updated to $699,000.
O’Rourke said there was about four months stock sitting on the market which made it a “little bit more competitive”.
“Vendors are getting more realistic and understanding that you’ve got to be in the range of negotiable acceptance rather than flying a kite in terms of their pricing otherwise it will just get overlooked.”
Houses were still selling once they hit what buyers considered as a realistic price, he said.
Other properties with price drops include a three-bedroom home on Marau Crescent, in Mission Bay, Auckland, which the agents say is "priced to sell today"; a three-bedroom home on Aotea Street, in Auckland's Orakei, which has seen its asking price reduced to $2.35m; a three-bedroom townhouse on Silver Moon Road, on Auckland's North Shore, whose overseas owners want to sell with urgency; and a three-bedroom home on Collingwood Road, in Waiuku, Franklin, which has seen its price reduced to $859,000.
