A steady stream of properties will continue to hit the market until mid-December and if you don’t find your dream home don’t panic as there will be an even bigger flood of houses for sale from the end of January.
Agents do not expect the holiday season to stand in the way of new properties hitting the market and are expecting to list until the first week of December and sell them right up until Christmas,
Ray White head auctioneer Sam Steele said while listing numbers were up on three months ago, he expected an even bigger spike in the New Year.
The expected post-election rush was not as big as he had expected and property owners who had been saying they were waiting until after the election to sell now seemed to have pushed it back until after Christmas because they needed a bit more time.
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“The influx of properties that we’ve been expecting hasn’t quite been to the level that we anticipated, but looking forward I think what that means is in the New Year it’s going to be very, very busy.”
However, properties would also continue to come on the market until the first week of December and there were plenty of auctions lined up for the rest of 2023 including the week leading up to Christmas.
“November and December are traditionally two of our busiest months of the year, we don’t anticipate it quietening down anytime soon, but we do think it’s going to increase in earnest in the New Year.”
Tommy’s sales manager Tim Clark said listings were also up in the Capital, but it was coming from an extremely low base and they still needed more to meet buyer demand.
Ray White lead auctioneer Sam Steele expects a huge surge in listings in the New Year. Photo / Supplied
In the first week of November, his office had sold 16 houses, which saw a total of 45 offers made on them.
He said listings would continue to rise until the first week of December and pick up again from the end of January.
“I would expect listings to come back in reasonably strong sort of a way. A lot of people are saying they want to list after Christmas which would be late January / February / March.
“We think that’s a reasonably typical pattern for this time of the year, and we are not expecting to see anything different. We are definitely welcoming more new stock to the market.”
Lodge Real Estate managing director Jeremy O’Rourke expected a similar pattern in Hamilton.
A for sale sign in Christchurch. Bayleys Canterbury general manager Rachel Dovey said there's still a small window for people to list now before Christmas. Photo / Peter Meecham
The increased number of properties for sale had given buyers more choice and as a result drawn in additional buyers, he said. First-home buyers were especially on the prowl as they tried to nab a home before investors returned and they faced more competition.
Bayleys Canterbury general manager Rachel Dovey said there were still a lot of listings coming on and this would continue right through November especially as people realised time was running out if they wanted to sell this year.
People generally needed about four weeks to sell a property, she said, including one week to prepare their home and three weeks for the marketing campaign to run.
“... if you are not going now, or you are not going three weeks out from the second to last week before Christmas then you are not in this side of Christmas. So, you can see the pressure point and it is rising, the numbers are quite steady.”
Those who missed out would be getting ready to launch their houses in January, she said, but exactly when this happened would also depend on the weather as the better the weather the longer people stayed away.
Harcourts Papatoetoe salesperson Harsh Kathuria said there was more confidence in the market and those under pressure were looking to sell now, while a lot of listings came on in January were due to people making plans relating to property over the holiday break and wanting to action them.
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