Auctions in Christchurch are going strong with the southern city not suffering as many slings and arrows as the market in the larger centres.
Chris Kennedy, managing director of Harcourts Gold in Christchurch, says his office had an exciting auction day on Thursday.
Of 16 properties called 11 sold under the hammer, some with fierce bidding.
“That is a good day. The doom and gloom that's being portrayed across the media is not what we're seeing in Christchurch - the country’s bigger than Auckland.”
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Bidders “scrapped it out” over a home on Mount Pleasant Road, in Mount Pleasant. Set on 1436sqm and with garaging for five cars, the bidding opened at $750,000 with the property selling for $1.11 million.
The four-bedroom home with views of the water and to the distant Kaikoura Ranges was marketed as “renovate, demolish or sub-divide”.
Another home which saw “phenomenal” action was on Hackthorne Road in Cashmere.
Bids opened at $900,000, the property was called on the market at $1.551m and sold for $1.575m with two bidders in “just an all-out scrap”.
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The five-bedroom, two-bathroom renovated home is on 934sqm and in a “magical hill setting”.
Other homes sold included Leacroft Street, a fully-fenced three-bedroom house in Bishopdale, which opened at $500,000 and sold for $656,000.
A big five-bedroom semi-rural property with a swimming pool on George Noble Road, in Yaldhurst, sold for $1.62m, and a three-bedroom home on Highsted Road, in Casebrook, opened at $450,000 and sold at $627,500.
Kennedy says auction is a “wonderful” method of sales which prioritises people who are cash and unconditional buyers and gets results.
Around half of Harcourts Gold listings go to auction with a 50%-55% clearance rate on the day and in what they call the “mop up” another 25%-30% are under offer or sold, making the auction arena success rate around 75%-80%.
“It becomes a wonderful vehicle to enable people to find the market and make informed decisions,” he says.
“Last year, our calendar year, our clearance rate across auctions was 82% so when you look at it from that perspective you're giving yourself a pretty good chance of selling and getting a result.”
A five-bedroom home on Hackthorne Road, in Cashmere, Christchurch, sold under the hammer for $1.575m. Photo / Supplied
A three-bedroom home on Leacroft Street, in Bishopdale, Christchurch, sold under the hammer for $656,000. Photo / Supplied
The market is not as strong as it was in 2020 and 2021 but it’s still a good market, he says, with a mix of first, second and third-home buyers as well as investors.
There may always be some owners who would have liked more for their property, they know at auction they get a cash, unconditional buyer so have the certainty to be able to move on with their plans.
Shane Cortese, Harcourts’ national auction manager, says Christchurch hasn’t seen the peaks and troughs as hard as Auckland but the process is the same.
“It’s still the fastest way to get a buyer and seller to meet in a market and buy with certainty.”
Connor Patton, Bayleys head auctioneer, says the company also had a good week in Christchurch, with seven out of 14 properties selling.
“That was the same as the week before, we've been running at about 50% for the last couple of weeks and auctions have been performing relatively well there.”
There were several auctions with multiple bidders across price points, including a property on Knowles Street, in Merivale, where two bidders took the price up to $3.05m.
That kind of price is becoming more common for Christchurch but not as common as in Auckland and the money certainly goes further in the southern city, Patton says.
Two bidders drove up the price of a smart home on Knowles Street, in Merivale, Christchurch, to $3.05m. Photo / Supplied
A lifestyle property on Quaifes Road, in Halswell, sold under the hammer for $1.76m. Photo / Supplied
“That was in a nice area in Merivale, it was a 357sqm lovely home.”
Another property in Halswell had five or six bidders fighting for the four hectare lifestyle property with two dwellings on Quaifes Road, which sold for $1.76m.
“It was a four-hectare block and it was next to an area that's been developed quite a lot for sections and things, so there was two nice properties on it but arguably a land-bank for future with the development in that area, so that proved popular for sure.”
The second-home market is also strong with two out of three properties in nearby Akaroa selling, he says.
One was on Aylmers Valley Road, in walking distance to the village, which went for $1.03m, while a home on Selwyn Avenue, which has views of the harbour, sold for $1m.
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