Auckland’s largest real estate agency, Barfoot and Thompson, kicked off December with its busiest week since 2015, calling 368 auctions and selling $270 million worth of property under the hammer.
It followed a record November in which the agency racked up more than $945 million in auction sales alone, and the real estate sector as whole achieved more than $2 billion worth of sales at auction.
Barfoot and Thompson auctions manager Campbell Dunoon told OneRoof: “Last week was our peak week, easily [our best] since 2015.
“This week, we’re way up year on year and we’ve got auctions [booked] through until December 22. After that, the issue is availability of lawyers and business days to process contracts.”
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Barfoot and Thompson said it had called 1225 auctions in November, nearly double the number in November 2019. Numbers were up at Ray White and Bayleys, too.
In Auckland, Ray White sold $538 million under the hammer, with another $96 million outside of Auckland, while Bayleys sold $424 million nationwide.
The heat was most noticeable in Auckland, but other parts of New Zealand also saw increased action in their auction rooms. Bayleys national auction manager Conor Patton said that the company had 100 percent clearance rate in Gisborne last week, and had seen a noticeable lift in bidding in Christchurch too.
Real Estate Institute of New Zealand CEO: “November was an incredible month.”
Patton said that buyers were still looking hard, wanting to secure a home this side of Christmas. He expected the momentum to continue into the first months of 2021. “There are no signs that will change next year,” he said.
Ray White chief operating officer Daniel Coulson said the company’s scheduled auctions for December were 90.3 percent up on December last year. “I think different parts of the market have different results and performance, but there’s new stock coming. Live listings this December are up, and some of that new stock will flow into January,” he said.
“We’re advertising over Christmas New Year so you can see how deep it will go into next year.”
According to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, the number of residential properties sold in November across New Zealand hit 6,157, up 29.6 percent on November 2019.
Bindi Norwell, chief executive at REINZ, said: “November was an incredible month in terms of the number of properties sold, with just shy of 10,000 properties sold over 30 days. The last time we saw a similar level of sales volumes was back in March 2007.”
Median house prices across New Zealand increased by 18.5 percent from $632,000 in November 2019 to $749,000. In Auckland, the median sale price hit $1.03 million.
Harcourts managing director Bryan Thomson said that Auckland and Christchurch were traditionally the company’s “auction power houses” but he had noted significantly more properties were going to auction nationwide. “More than 50 percent of new listings are [going to] auction.”
He added: “We’re looking forward to a busy summer, with more activity over the holiday period, as no one is going overseas.”
