'The market has gone crazy. People are just grabbing something'

Auckland’s property market is running hot again, less than six months after Covid-19 shut down the country for almost two months and reduced real estate sales to all-time low.

The latest REINZ figures show that Auckland sales in the seven months to July are already 1.7 percent up on the first seven months of last year - with an additional 209 properties sold.

READ MORE: Find out if your suburb is rising or falling

Auctions results show houses selling well above CV – a turnaround from the same period last year – and agents are reporting a huge lift in buyer activity and are crying out for more stock to keep up with demand. To get ahead of the competition buyers are even prepared to make offers on homes sight unseen.

This week Barfoot and Thompson agent Cici Wang sold a three-bedroom villa at 141 Bassett Road, in Remuera, for nearly $2 million to a buyer who was so desperate to secure a home, they submitted an offer without setting foot on the property.

Wang had 16 other buyers on a list waiting to view the tenanted property once the level three restrictions were lifted.

"The market has gone crazy. People who have been looking for a while are just grabbing something,” she told OneRoof. "Now I have 16 people who have missed out."

Nineteen buyers registered to bid on 11 Rutland Road, inMount Wellington. Photo / Supplied

The rush for properties is not confined to sought-after suburbs in the prized double grammar zone or trendy neighbourhoods close to the city such as Grey Lynn and Ponsonby. At Ray White Remuera auctions this week, agent Matt Gibson had 19 registered bidders for a brick and tile home at 11 Rutland Road, in Mount Wellington, which ended up selling for well above its 2017 CV.

Gibson had shown 91 groups through the house before the level three lockdown came into effect, and said 20 of the prospective buyers were from his database who had missed out on a similar Mount Wellington property he'd sold a couple of months ago.

43B Lucerne Road, in Remuera, sold for $1.382 million atauction. Photo / Supplied

"Buyers are a bit lost. We're educating them at every auction, it's crazy. There are still not enough houses to go around," he said,

Fellow Ray White Remuera agents Alexander Babukhin and Todd Sherley had 19 bidders for 43B Lucerne Road, which sold for $1.382 million, $262,000 above CV. Although the house lies just outside double grammar zone, it had over 120 viewings, mainly young families keen to get into the Meadowbank school zone.

"First-home buyer prices here have risen from around $1 million two years ago to $1.3 million today," Babukhin said.

8 Louvain Avenue, in Three Kings, fetched $435,000 above CVat auction. Photo / Supplied

Harcourts national auction manager Aaron Davis Harcourts said there’s been a 63 per cent increase in the amount of people bidding at the agency’s auctions.

At the start of this month’s lockdown, Harcourts sold four flats on a large section at 8 Louvain Avenue, in Three Kings, for $2.235 million under the hammer - $435,000 above the CV.

Four buyers competed to secure the investment property at the online auction and between them made a total of 102 bids, with the eventual winner offering an extra $185,000 after it passed the reserve. “It felt like there were fireworks in the room,” Davis said.

Davis said the online auctions felt more engaging and he sees the industry mixing in-person bids with online and phone bidding in the future.

"None of us expected it. People are more relaxed and it's more conversational and engaging. It kind of humanises the auction,” he said, adding that it was easier to read people when they are close to their screen, rather than at the back of the auction room.

72 Gowing Drive, in Meadowbank, had 87 bids made on itbefore selling. Photo / Supplied

"You can see their facial expressions, they can see yours and in the normal auction sometimes you're 10 metres away from people," he adds.

Bayleys national auctioneer Sam Steele has noticed the shift in buyer demand, too. At a recent Bayleys auction two bidders battled it out for a three-bedroom house at 72 Gowing Drive, in Meadowbank. Between them they made 87 bids, with the property eventually selling for $1.182 million – just above CV.

Steele said: "There's certainly good competition for quality properties, particularly in the family home sector at around the $1.3 million price mark. There's not a lot of that stock floating around and it's being represented in the auction room," he said.

Buyer demand during alert level three in South Auckland is just as high. Ray White Papatoetoe principal and auctioneer Ted Ingram said he’s had people making bids from outside the auction room.

"We’ve had people in South Auckland on the phone, online and standing at the door. We can't let them in but we opened two glass doors and had an agent by each one taking bids," Ingram said.

- Additional reporting Catherine Smith