Harcourts agent David Ding, whose Glenfield and Hillcrest patch is focused on homes around the $900,000 to $1m mark, said he is still seeing a lot of buyers sitting on the fence.
“They’re still waiting for prices to drop 5% to 10% although there are those who will try out an offer.”
Ding said buyers are using builders’ reports – which have ballooned this year to over three-hour long inspections from the traditional 45-minute check – as a hard negotiating tool.
“After they get the report back, I’ve had buyers walk away, or ask for $50,000 or $100,000 price reduction, one buyer asked to replace the roof.
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“Vendors haven’t got much power, they just accept it as the price could go lower if they get another offer, if they’re going overseas or into retirement they have no Plan B. We all know the first offer is the best offer.”
The high spots are still there: a basic three-bedroom, one-bathroom home on Sunset Road, Sunnynook, that Ding listed in February had 72 groups view it in three weeks and received five offers.
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Ding said the vendor had staged the property, put in a new kitchen and bathroom and got the resulting offers in the first week or two. But such exceptions are rarer this year, in a market Ding characterises as the most challenging in his 15-year career.
But looking across the Tasman to the Sydney market pick-up, Ding expects an Auckland one to follow with the usual six-month lag.
Ben Macky, managing director of Wallace and Stratton, said that buyers are very aware it is their time in the market, so poorly presented properties with vendors who won’t meet the market are languishing.
“Some places may take three months to sell, others just three to four weeks, it depends on the vendor. There are definitely buyers there, but they’re very aware it is a buyers’ market,” he said, adding that many buyers are keen to buy before their finance pre-approvals expire. But it is price sensitive.”
A four-bedroom brick and tile house on Schnapper Rock Road, Albany, had 12 registered bidders and sold, for $1.446m, just over its CV. Photo / Supplied
The North Shore high spots, Macky said, are Takapuna and the coastal areas, especially anything with good views. He said buyers are back looking at developments, after nearly two years of shunning buying off-the-plan in some places.
Projects that will be ready for occupancy in three months and those that have dropped prices 10% to 20% are getting the nod. Often these deals are not widely advertised.
“They’re really good buys, but only to a database, as they’re [going for] well under what sold off-the-plan a couple of years ago. Developers are clearing stock out, saying ‘we'll take less’,” he said, pointing to townhouses in Henderson that are selling for under $500,000 and some in South Auckland for under $300,000 for a one-bedroom.
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty managing director for the North, Suzi Matz, said that the over-$4m market is picking up, not just on the waterfront.
The company recently closed on a Takapuna waterfront deal for a property with a CV of $10.6m, but cannot discuss details until it settles later in the year, but Matz said international buyers were starting to fly back in to look at property.
“We’d probably have one a month, it’s definitely picked up this year. We do have a few off-market properties listed, there is a lot of interest from people shopping with $10m.”
