Property investors and blue-chip buyers have been ditching gift-shopping for house-hunting as they look to secure a property just days before Christmas.
A small motel unit in Christchurch’s CBD sold under the hammer for $33,000 in a competitive bidding war on Tuesday, while a $10 million home on Te Kowhai Place, in Remuera, was snapped up for north of $10m.
The court-forced the sale of a studio apartment in City Central Motel Apartments on Barbadoes Street, in Christchurch’s central city saw three people compete for the property at Harcourts Grenadier’s auction room. The auction opened at $8000, the unit was announced on the market at $30,000 and it sold for $33,000 after a total of 14 bids.
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While a luxury eight-bedroom home on Te Kowhai Place, in Remuera. sold before the tender closing date after multiple offers were tabled. The price for the concrete Cook Hitchcock Sargisson-designed property is confidential until it settles next year, but New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty’s Remuera owner Jonathan Sissons said it was “well over $10m”. The property had a CV of $9.6m and OneRoof records show it sold nine years ago for $5.5m.
Sissons told OneRoof that the holidays didn’t stop high-end buyers from wanting to do deals.
“They like to get their business done before Christmas, so then when they go on holiday they can relax and don’t have to worry. The buyer activity has really ramped up,” he said.
“And sellers don’t have the inconvenience of showing people through the house, they’re very busy people and like to know what’s happening.”
There was competitive bidding on a Christchurch motel unit that sold under the hammer for $33,000. Photo / Supplied
A luxury home on Te Kowhai Place, in Remuera, sold last week after just three weeks on the market with multiple tenders and a sale price well over $10m. Photo / Supplied
Agent Gavin Pollard, who marketed the 547sqm Te Kowhai Place property with Klara Kozak, said when he joined the industry three years ago he was told activity died down in December.
“You just don’t know. But in this case, everyone is happy to go into the Christmas period sorted. The buyer had been looking for a while, found it and liked it and wanted to move on it.”
“The buyers just wanted to get surety, and everyone is happy.”
Christchurch-based property investment specialist and coach Nathan Broughton believed the two weeks leading up to Christmas was the best time to buy as there were fewer buyers around and motivated vendors willing to do a deal before heading off on holiday.
“It’s lower competition – people have checked out, they don’t really care too much about property, they are trying to get Christmas presents.”
Broughton said most of the deals accepted now would likely be conditional, which could also work in the buyers’ favour as it gave them more time to do their due diligence while they waited for the lawyers to return to work. The time frame was usually pushed out from 10 working days to 15 to 20 working days at this time of year, he said.
He has a handful of offers on properties that he’s waiting to hear back on in the next few days and said the key was making sure the numbers added up.
“All of my offers are generally lower than asking because asking price doesn’t work for what I want to do so it’s got to work for you.
“If you can get an offer in up until Saturday, it would be well worth trying because of the lack of competition.”
A property on Ngapuhi Road, in Remuera, sold for $3.9m just five days before Christmas. Photo / Supplied
The home had been smartly renovated. Photo / Supplied
Bayleys agent David Rainbow said he had done transactions on Christmas Eve before because if people found the property they wanted, they would act.
“We’ve got Chinese New Year early in February, Easter is early this year, so people know they’ve just got two months for the peak selling season.”
Some of his high-end buyers had just had enough of looking and wanted to move. He was helping buyers at an auction yesterday, one of two bidders on a smartly renovated five-bedroom bungalow on Ngapuhi Road, Remuera.
While his buyers missed out (the house, marketed by Carolyn Ryan sold for $3.9m) he said the timing didn’t put people off.
“Even someone looking over $10m, then if the property is ideal people will jump in. They’re not going to let it go.”
Ray White salesperson Ross Hawkins said high-quality apartments in Saint Heliers and Parnell including a top-floor apartment on Augustus Terrace that sold for $2.45m have been flying off the shelves.
Hawkins said they are the “smart ones” who realised that because of the high cost of replacing these homes they were buying at never-to-be-repeated prices.
“People have packed up to have a great break after a tough year and there will be many who have been sitting on their hands in recent times making decisions over the holiday period about what to do regarding their living situations in the new year. The people making the call now and acting on it are, as I previously said, the smart buyers.”
The top-floor apartment in the Ford Lofts on Augustus Terrace, in Parnell, was one of several high-end apartments that were snapped up this side of Christmas. Photo / Supplied
Harcourts Fendalton agent Zani Polson said people seemed to have social pressure of wanting everything tied up before Christmas and didn’t want to have to admit they hadn’t bought or sold when asked on Christmas Day.
“The house buying is much like projects at work – everyone wants to have things tidied before Christmas in terms of life and it’s feeling relaxed on Christmas Day and not having any uncertainty.”
Polson said both buyers and sellers tended to be motivated at this time of year which seemed to make it easier to find a middle ground. More properties that have passed in at auction are being priced immediately, which she believed was a signal that the owners were committed to sell. A property at Rolleston, in Selwyn, Canterbury, that was marketed with a declared reserve passed in at auction and was then priced even lower.
“I think buyers are more motivated to get deals across the line, but so are vendors.”
Harcourts Papakura salesperson Alex Dunn has had four sales go unconditional in the last few weeks and expected a further two to be unconditional by Friday.
Rather than putting a 10-working day deadline for the buyers to get all their conditions met, he said they were specifically writing December 22 because they wanted it all sorted before the holiday period kicked off.
While some buyers were exhausted from the search and had parked it for the year, he said others, including investors, were making the most of there being less competition around.
“A lot more investors coming through looking for deals just throwing offers around. Agents want to get deals done, owners want to get deals done before Christmas as well so thinking they might be able to play some hardball.”
Dunn said they already had five properties lined up to go to the market in January so while all the signs were pointing to there being more choice next year, there would also be more competition.
“Right now buyers have said we will worry about it in the new year so come the new year I think there will be a lot more buyers in the market again.”
- additional reporting Catherine Smith
