Agents in Auckland’s trendy inner-city suburbs have buyers ready to spend around $5 million on the right home - but the stock is proving difficult to find.
Ollie Wall, of Wall Real Estate, said that agents were struggling to get enough listings to satisfy top-end buyers in Ponsonby and Herne Bay.
“There are plenty of buyers with that money, but just not enough houses for sale – absolutely nothing unless it is a do-up," he said, referring to homes in the $3m to $5m price range.
“The sweet spot is a completely renovated place, up to $4.5m."
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He said an immaculately renovated five-bedroom villa his firm listed at 50 Sarsfield Street, Herne Bay, has already attracted huge interest after less than a week on the market. “This has just what everyone wants but is very difficult to find – a five-bedroom, renovated family home with flat lawn for the kids to play on, you can watch them in the pool from the kitchen," he said.
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Wall said the two-storeyed home would appeal to buyers with $7m to spend. OneRoof records show it has a CV of $5.3m and changed hands nearly seven years ago for $4.4m, before work was done.
“There have been very few high-quality homes like this on the market in the last year. Almost everybody is saying ‘let’s see what’s out there and what does it cost’, but a lot of buyers are conditional on selling their place. They’re not greedy, but they want to make sure they’re transacting in the same market.”
Wall said that settlement times have stretched out in their market from the usual two months to three or four months so that buyers are comfortable they have enough time to sell. “People are confident enough to move now, but it’s all taking a lot longer," he said.
A five-bedroom renovated villa with a pool at 50 Sarsfield Street, Herne Bay, Auckland, is in high demand. Photo / Supplied
The Sarsfield Street property is in high demand from families looking for high-quality, renovated homes. Photo / Supplied
Two other sales in the area at the end of last month show that buyers with budgets of $3m-plus are ready to go, after pausing at the end of last year through until late May.
Barfoot & Thompson agent Carl Madsen, with colleague Luke Dallow, inked the sale of a fully-renovated, three-bedroom villa with a pool on Trinity Street, on the border of Ponsonby and Herne Bay, last month that had been languishing earlier in the year.
Madsen said the uptick in interest in the property, which had not sold at auction in March after being listed since December, was a good indication of the market turnaround in the last month in his inner-city suburb patch.
He could not disclose the eventual sale price of the house, which had an asking price of $3.795m. The home on a 481sqm section had a CV of $3.275m and OneRoof records show it had changed hands in late 2020 for $3.3m.
Renewed interest in a villa on Trinity Street, Ponsonby, which eventually sold last month after failing to do so at auction in March, shows how much the market has turned in the last month, the agent said. Photo / Supplied
The fully renovated villa and pool sold for an undisclosed sum. Photo / Supplied
He said this time around there were strong multi-offers on the house before it was secured by a Kiwi expat.
“Previously In this market, we went through pricing and re-positioning from end of last year and into January, February, March and April [for all our listings]. We had lots and lots of enquiry and people at open homes, but was difficult to get offers.
“We waited and waited, but buyers were just saying ‘we’ll sit and wait on this’. But now the gun has gone off and people are ready to go now.
“Good on them.”
Madsen said in his 33 years in the business, he had seen how the waves in residential property work in Auckland.
“You see it [first] in the $1m to $1.2m suburbs getting multi-offers, the outer suburbs. That vendor then becomes a buyer closer to town, then that next vendor moves.
“The good thing is that the feeling in the inner-city area is that wave is coming – it's only a couple of sales cycles, a few weeks it’ll be here. It’s like dominos.”
Madsen said the low number of listings now were hampering movement as people were reluctant to put their house on the market if they didn’t see options to buy.
That is evident in the latest figures from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand which show that while new listings around the country are up 3% on April's dismal showing, at 7359 they are 18% down on last May's numbers.
In Auckland, new listings in May this year were down 19.3% last May, and just 2% up on April. And the total number of properties for sale in Auckland in May was 9670, well down on the 10,636 for sale a year ago.
In mid-May, another smartly renovated three-bedroom on nearby Whanganui Avenue fetched $3.1m under the hammer. OneRoof records show the house, with a contemporary kitchen and 416sqm yard, had a CV of $3.475m and had last sold 10 years ago for $1.67m.
OneRoof records show there have been a handful of $3m to $5m-plus sales settled in the Ponsonby, Herne Bay and Grey Lynn area this year, and less than 40 properties over $3m on the market right now, down volumes at this price point last year.
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