A whopping 85 auctions on Tuesday rounded out a record year for Auckland largest real estate agency.
Barfoot and Thompson auctions manager Campbell Dunoon told OneRoof he had never conducted auctions this close to the holiday break before.
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“This is the biggest amount we've held this close to Christmas. And we start auctions again on January 18. We’ve got booked 20 for that week; last year it was four,” Dunoon said.
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Dunoon was confident that the momentum in the market would continue well into 2021.
“We’ll be selling over summer, nobody can go anywhere and people still have a mindset to look for property.”
There were several highpoints at the Barfoot and Thompson auction: an immaculately renovated villa at 34 Ascot Avenue, in Remuera, sold for $3.56 million - almost $600,000 above CV – while a 1960s brick house at 3 Boon Street, in Manurewa, sold for $800,000 and a tired 1920s railway cottage at 50 Nikau Road, in Otahuhu, sold for $805,000.
Above: 22 Stewart Avenue, in Panmure, sold for $1.461 million. Below: neighbouring 20 Stewart Avenue sold to the same investor for just over $1.5 million. Photos / Supplied
Keitha and Alex Rohde, who marketed 50 Nikau Road, said the house had been in the same family for 40 years. The buyer had picked it up as investment property and had plans to do up the exterior.
Two neighbouring Panmure houses, at 20 and 22 Stewart Avenue, were sold separately for more than $1 million. Both were 1950s brick ex-State houses on sections with favourable zoning and were bought by a Dunedin-based developer.
An original 1920s railway cottage at 50 Nikau Road, Otahuhu sold for $805,000. Photo / Supplied
The property at 22 Stewart Avenue was first on the block and fetched $1.461 million, $401,000 above CV. 20 Stewart sold under the hammer for $1.5025 million - $600,000 above CV.
Barfoot and Thompson agent Di Martens, who sold number 20, said that the neighbours had not wanted to pair up, although they knew developers had been paying big money for combined sites.
Barfoot & Thompson agent Peter Wu, who represented the Dunedin buyer, said the developer had had money in the bank and saw more value growth in Auckland property than houses in the South Island.
Bayleys' last auctions of the year were in Hamilton and Tauranga.
The biggest sale was for 1.4140ha of land on the hills just outside of the Coromandel beach town of Whangamata.
Bayleys agent Karl Davis, who marketed 25 Manuka Drive with colleague Dale Sholson, said that a local buyer beat out bidders from Waikato and Auckland, with the property selling for $1.41 million.
“In a hot market, everything sells, so it’s a good time to sell land," he said.
A lifestyle section just outside of Whangamata sold at auction for $1.41 million. Photo / Supplied
Conor Patton, Bayleys national auction manager, said the firm's end of year auctions were up 55 percent nationwide on last year, with Auckland up 138 percent. He said bookings for January were already up, but expected things to really take off in February.
"We’ve still gone deeper into December than I ever recall," he said.
“It would be a bold person to predict what will happen [in 2021], but as long as people can get access to the funds people are still buoyed by the economic outcomes.”
