The record December for Auckland’s biggest real estate agency caps off a remarkable year in real estate when $60.8 billion of property changed hands.
And that is just to the end of November, with national December data still to come.
Already sales last year are 25 percent up on the same 11 months of 2019, reports the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand. Agents have been reporting their best December sales ever, so the final year’s figure may climb even higher.
The 12 month's figures are likely to cap off a year that REINZ chief executive Bindi Norwell, in an understatement, called “interesting.”
Start your property search
“The number of properties sold end November was 75,800 which is a 6.2 percent increase on the same period last year,” she said. Median sales price jumped 5.6 percent to $675,000.
The market growth was even more in Auckland: total dollar sales were up 41 percent to $29.2 billion for the 11 months on a volume jump of 23 percent to 20,930. The median sales price jumped 11.4 percent to $941,000 in the Queen City, with properties selling in just 38 days.
“That is considerable, given the additional two-and-a-half-week lockdown Auckland had in August,” she says.
Peter Thompson, chief executive of Barfoot & Thompson reported the company’s biggest December ever, when it shifted 1479 properties at an average price of $1,092,518.
He forecasts this will spill into an equally strong 2021.
“What these sales numbers do not show is the large number of yet to be completed and conditional sales in the pipeline, many of which will show up in January and February sales data, and this will ensure that the market makes a strong start to 2021,” he said, adding that a lot of new listings were coming on and the normal auction slate was starting back in the third week of January.
In the year, Barfoot & Thompson sold just under 12,000 properties – 11,944 – making it the second biggest sales year after the 2015 market peak. That year it sold 13,668 properties, but with December sales only half this year’s level, at just 796.
Thompson emphasises that despite the economists’ forecasts earlier in the year of runaway price increases, median prices went up just $80,075 or 9.5 percent.
"We’ve had increases in the past of 21 percent, so this is not a record. And we’re only expecting increases of maybe five to ten percent, if that, next year.”
He expects the next jump in sales to be later in 2021 - September and October - when overseas-based Kiwis will have been able to sell their properties and bring their money home as cashed up buyers.
Multi-million-dollar sales were the highest ever for Barfoot & Thompson in 2020, with 739 sales over $2 million (and a further 4486 for between $1 million and $2 million). Even in April and May’s lockdown period, 29 $2 million-plus sales were completed. In December alone the company closed on 133 sales over $2 million, the highest ever in a month.
While sales for less than $500,000 – 960 this year - are now a fraction of what they were five years ago, they have been gradually picking up as more and more apartment sales make up the mix of the company's sales.
Despite record numbers of new properties coming to the market in December (868), at the start of January the company has less than 3000 for sale - the lowest in five years.
But Thompson has a word of advice for would-be sellers coming to market this year: “Don’t over-price, don’t hold out for really top dollar.
“There are many buyers out there, but they aren’t silly and they won’t pay stupid prices.”
And REINZ’s Norwell expects continued growth in regions as remote working grows but has a warning too.
“This year has certainly highlighted further that we need a consolidated industry and government response to help address housing unaffordability across New Zealand.”
