A sale of an Auckland apartment last week sight unseen, eight virtual auctions held in an auctioneer’s living room on Wednesday to Saturday, and a slew of enquiries for new listings; these all show that the New Zealand property market is still ticking along, despite the country-wide lockdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
Agents are recommending to their vendors that they continue to keep their property listings live and more than a few have already put up new listings since the Level 4 restrictions came into effect on March 26.
While details of New Zealand's first remote sales deal are being kept private at the vendor's request, OneRoof can reveal that the agent and buyer watched on video as the tenant walked through the apartment.
Peter Thompson, managing director of Barfoot and Thompson, Auckland's biggest real estate agency, says there is a lot of positive sentiment still out in the market.
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“At this stage, there’s still plenty of interest out there. We sold 250 properties mainly through auctions for the week up to Thursday [March 26].
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“Obviously we can’t hold a live auction, but we could turn it into a tender or price by negotiation, and agents are discussing with their vendors what is a good price to put on.”
Thompson says while some vendors are halting their campaigns until the travel restrictions are lifted, others are still ploughing ahead. “Plenty of people have got plenty of interest, and people who looked [at properties] prior to lockdown, there will continue to be deals transacted,” he says.
Eight deals in 36 hours
Carolyn Vernon, who heads Barfoot & Thompson’s Remuera office, says that her agents closed eight deals in 36 hours last week before the lockdown.
“It depends on the vendor circumstances and confidence levels, some like to be safe, some are risk takers – not everyone is the same. Those that are seriously selling, we provide objective advice so it’s the right decision for them,” she says.
Vernon says agents were still getting calls on Thursday and she anticipates even more calls this week once people are settled into being at home. She praised lawyers who swiftly handled settlement paperwork and continued help close deals.
And it is still possible to buy at auction.
Auctioneer Tim Obern, of Apollo Auctions, ran Australasia’s first virtual auctions on Auckland's North Shore last week. Four out of eight lots at the Ray White auctions were sold using the streaming Auction Live platform. Buyers bid through agents, who had hooked into the auction using Google Meetings, and could see their bids on the screen behind Obern.
“We’d used this in rooms before, but not online. It was quite surreal, they’re watching a broadcast and seeing me take the bids,” he said.
Captive audience
Martin Cooper, who runs Harcourts Cooper & Co on Auckland's North Shore, is equally bullish about keeping listings up to sell properties, saying that people with a lot of time locked down at home may be realising that this home is not “fit for purpose".
“We have a captive audience who might go online and have a look, and we’ll arrange inspections as soon as we’re allowed.”
Cooper says that there’s still nothing like walking into a house to find it feels right, so thinks that digital walk-throughs might suit only a tiny proportion of buyers.
The company concluded 18 extra deals on Tuesday and Wednesday last week for sellers who wanted certainty before lockdown started. He said of the rest of the 130 auctions slated after lockdown started, the majority were kept live and will run auction campaigns at a later date. Around 20 per cent of vendors opted for price by negotiation or paused their campaigns to wait and see.
Barry Thom, director of Auckland real estate agency Unlimited Potential, says that the company has left all their listings live. “Enquiries are ongoing. Yesterday we had one [potential buyer] from the US who took a walk-through tour of a house we are marketing. They knew the property well and the drastic fall in exchange rate is making properties here very attractive.”
Thom says that online, “all homes are open 24/7” and that people will re-think their idea of home, and see New Zealand as a safe haven.
Property itch
He says contracts can still be transacted, conditional on things like inspections, building reports or LIM reports being available once New Zealand is out of Level 4. “People will continue to scratch the property itch.”
Thom adds that while it is still very early days, New Zealand has the systems, processes and funding, and mental resolve to bounce back.
“People are still keen to make the most of the low interest rates we saw this summer. The bottom line is that people’s desires and needs haven’t changed, we’ve just been asked to go into hold.”
Daniel Coulson, general manager of residential real estate at Bayleys, says that deals were still concluding unconditionally on Friday after lockdown, including one property with three offers.
He says that vendors who want to sell are staying on the market, recognising that they’ve got a captive audience with plenty of time to look.
“I think of it as planting the seed, then when we get out of this we may reap the reward and get an early harvest. People will want to move quickly.”
Coulson says new listings were added even after Wednesday, and they’ve had a good enquiry rate, with agents using this time to build relationships with potential buyers. Some of those buyers are expat Kiwis contemplating a return home,and they’re used to buying property without having seen it in person.
“People are buying and selling for genuine reasons, and those reasons will continue,” he says.
Remuera Bayleys agent Gary Wallace was one of those who listed a property after lockdown, a new-build in Orakei, and has already had “tons of enquiries”.
He brought the auction forward of another of his properties, which had its first open home only the Saturday before Monday’s Level 4 announcement, and got five telephone bidders on Wednesday, selling it for $500,000 over CV.
“The buyers had sold a property, missed out on four other auctions, and felt that although it’s uncertain times, we will overcome. They’re over the moon.”
Wallace, too, has been fielding enquiries from expats looking for their safe haven. He says that now that the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand and the Law Society have clarified how settlements contracts will work during Level 4 and after, people are more relaxed.
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