Developers and investors appear to have picked the bottom of the Auckland housing market, bringing heat to the auction of a tired-looking, three-bedroom home in Mangere.
Eight bidders duked it out over 38 minutes for the 867sqm development site on Walmsley Road. After 213 bids, the hammer came down at $961,500.
Tom Rawson, co-owner of Ray White Manukau, said the numbers in the auction room were “insane".
“It was crazy busy, we had over 100 people in the room. It was nuts. We were saying, ‘what the hell is going on?’.”
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“There were still three or four bidders for the last $100,000. The owners were crying.”
The property had a CV of $1.315 million and had been in the same family for over two decades.
Rawson said auction attendance was approaching levels last seen in 2021. He said the 213 bids on the Walmsley Road home was a record for the company.
“Our previous record at the height of the market was 168,” he said.
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Ray White agent Pat Lapalapa, who marketed the property, said interest had been so low that he’d only had one group through open homes before the buyer, and two other developers, showed up on the day before auction.
Bidding was fierce, with the eventual winner being a local developer who has another project underway on the same street. Lapalapa wasn’t sure when he would start building but said he did not need to sell the houses off-the-plan as he hoped to time the completion to coincide with the recovery of the market.
The 867sqm site on Walmsley Road, Favona, was one of the last on the street that had not been developed. Photo / Supplied
Eight bidders pushed the price of a four-bedroom house with a two-bedroom minor dwelling on Marjorie Jayne Crescent, Otahuhu, to $1.29m. Photo / Supplied
“This is the last section left that hasn’t been developed here. There was really good competition,” Lapalapa said.
Rawson said that the 16 properties on the auction slate this week, eight of which sold, appealed to all sorts of buyers from first-home buyers and movers to developers and investors: “We had every single lolly in the lolly shop.”
The Walmsley Road sale was not the only standout sale in the past week.
A four-bedroom house with a two-bedroom minor dwelling on Marjorie Jayne Crescent, Otahuhu, marketed by Ray White’s Monika Aryaan, had 36 bids from 11 bidders before selling for $1.29m to a developer. The price was just shy of its $1.35m CV, and well above the on-the-market price called at $1.05m. The home sat on 1325sqm site.
A house in double grammar school zone on Heywood Crescent, Epsom, sold for $2.235m. Photo / Supplied
After 130 viewers and 14 bidders, a house on Greenhithe Road, Greenhithe, sold for $1.92m. Photo / Supplied
“The vendors were expecting around $900,000 so that price will make a big change in people’s lives. These are genuine, educated buyers, it’s not a speculator sport anymore,” Rawson said.
He put the surge in interest in auctions down to buyers trusting that vendors putting their properties under the hammer were serious about selling.
“It’s not price by negotiation, which is just testing the market,” he said, adding that buyers seeing others in the room gave them confidence that the price paid at auction was a fair market level. He said 82 bidders had registered for the 16 properties auctioned this week, with several lots having eight to 10 registered bidders.
“It gives sellers a level of confidence, that the market is the market. It’s not getting any worse or better, so now is as good a time to sell as any.”
On Auckland’s North Shore, Harcourts Cooper and Co auctioneer Andrew North said that after four or five months of buyers watching and waiting, and low levels of new stock, a bit of pressure had built in the market.
“First-home buyers are the biggest, they always fuel the fire. We’ve had a property with 60 groups at the first open home, 45 at the second,” he said.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re seeing movement.”
At Barfoot & Thompson auctions this week, a near-new four-bedroom weatherboard house on Manuwai Road, Torbay, sold for $1.33m after a pre-auction offer of $1.25m brought the auction forward.
A near-new four-bedroom house on Manuwai Road, Torbay, sold for $1.33m. Photo / Supplied
Records show the property had a CV of $1.275m and was sold two years ago for $1.2m. Listing agent Paul Adams said that was good news for vendors, after crowded open homes and six bidders registered for the auction.
“It’s what you want vendors to see. Compared to building a new home, with the long time delay, people know this is a good property. There is a lot of stock out there, but it is the quality stock that is really selling,” he said.
Barfoot & Thompson auctioneer Murray Smith said that there were definitely more people in their auction rooms across the city, more in person. He pointed to a four-bedroom home on Whytehead Road, Kohimarama, that sold for $2.061m (just under its $2.1m CV) as two online and eight in-person bidders duked it out.
“I'm finding people who are dead serious are getting themselves into the room, not online. It’s a bit like a TV show, you want to see the rest of the crowd in the room, not just the auctioneer on TV.”
Lifestyle buyers in Greenhithe are also circling. Ray White agents Ali Hellesoe and Jadyn Dixon, who marketed a stylish three-bedroom cottage with a garage-rumpus room on over 2000sqm on Greenhithe Road, Greenhithe, hosted over 130 viewers through the property in the three-weekend campaign.
Fourteen bidders and 23 bids later, the house sold last week for $1.92m – $545,000 over its $1.375m CV.
“We haven’t seen open-home numbers like that since end of 2021,” Hellesoe said.
“We had a few pre-auction offers, but we’re glad we brought it to the auction. That higher-end market, the buyers and the vendors are coming back to auction.”
In Epsom last week, a smartly refurbished four-bedroom home in double grammar school zone on Heywood Crescent sold for $2.235m after five bidders competed through 43 bids.
Ray White agent Bill Myers, who marketed the property with a CV of $2.15m, said price feedback from the over 100 groups who viewed the house had been around $1.9m.
“It’s always low. In this market my rule of thumb is that I’d expect 5% to 10% more,” he said.
“Everyone is sensitive that if they don’t hurry up and buy, then [prices] will go up. Lending has eased and there’s a lot of energy.” He said that a smart older house like this was good buying compared to brand-new terraces which start at $2.5m.
“I’d love to have another dozen like this, they’d all fly out at that price,” he said.
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