The crowds have returned to New Zealand’s auction rooms, and while the prices are still way off peak levels, the balance of power appears to be swinging back to the sellers.
At Ray White Manukau’s new auction rooms on Wednesday, there were 57 properties on the slate for a mega-auction event that was the real estate market’s version of “Barbenheimer”.
Lasting almost nine hours, 38 properties sold under the hammer for a total of close to $32 million, as more than 250 bidders – a mixture of first-home buyers, traders and investors – tried to realise their real estate dreams, or, at the very least, grab a bargain before the market gallops away on them.
First-home buyers Sarah and Hayden Kingi had taken the day off work to attend the auction, which agents had dubbed The Day. They had been looking for their own home since the end of March, and had already had missed out on a property at an earlier auction.
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Sarah told OneRoof they had been living for four years with her grandparents in Papatoetoe in order to save for a deposit, and had been pre-approved by their bank to spend between $650,000 and $750,000.
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The first property in their sights, a nicely refurbished three-bedroom home on Nogat Avenue, in Papatoetoe, exceeded their budget, but they found success just after lunch when the auction was called for their second choice, a three-bedroom home on Thompson Terrace, in Manurewa.
Bidding kicked off at $500,000 at 12.46pm and they were the proud owners of a home less than 10 minutes later after making a winning bid of $700,000.
When the hammer came down, the packed room erupted in applause.
Ray White chief auctioneer Sam Steele, who was calling the auctions with colleague Ben East, said that the sale was one of the highlights of the day.
“There was an amazing energy there. When people purchased, other buyers in the room were congratulating them and giving them hugs. People were so nice, genuinely pleased to see a good result for good people,” he said.
“For me, it was something very cool and interesting that there were people at both ends of the market – first-home buyers just starting on their ladder and families who’d been in their homes for 20 or 30 years making their final move.”
The three-bedroom home on Thompson Terrace, in Manurewa, that the Kingi family picked up for $700,000. Photo / Supplied
Ray White chief auctioneer Sam Steele takes bids during the marathon event, which Ray White had dubbed The Day. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Sarah told OneRoof the day after their win: “Until Wednesday, we’d gone ‘no auctions’. We had tried an offer with the owner of another home on Thompson Terrace but they wanted to go to auction."
She said when they missed out on their first choice, they felt as if they might be walking away empty-handed. Their hopes were raised when the auction for Thompson Terrace paused after they made a bid of $690,000, and they were taken aside to negotiate with the agent and auctioneer.
Sarah said they had seen properties that day sell for $100,000 over reserve, so they upped their offer to $700,000 and the property was declared on the market.
“We were praying no one else would bid,” she said.
“Watching the prices go well over reserve got us thinking ‘what is an extra $10,000’, we just want to do this. It’s our long-term house, that’s why we wanted three-bedrooms so when we have children, we don’t have to move.”
She added that she is the first of her five siblings to buy a home, while Hayden’s the first in his family of eight.
A first-home buyer, centre, waits nervously as her agent, Ray White's Naveen Arora, makes a bid on her behalf. She ended up winning the auction. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Nearly 600 people attended the auction event, and there were more than 250 registered bidders for the 57 properties on the slate. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Earlier in the day, another first-home buyer picked up a completely renovated three-bedroom home on Sterling Avenue, Manurewa, for $871,000 after a nail-biting 57 bids that took the price to $21,000 over CV.
Fueled by a coffee cart in the morning, and an ice-cream truck in the afternoon doling out free treats, nearly 600 people crowded through the doors to pick up properties. There were bright lights and balloons, and a very slick operation that sold properties from a luxury lifestyle home on Redoubt Road, Totara Park, that went for $2.02 million to a two-bedroom brick and tile granny flat on Weymouth Road, Manurewa that fetched $460,000.
While there were plenty of first-home buyers, the bread-and-butter buyers of the day were the investors and property traders after bargains.
“We get them every single week, but it was nice to see them in person because a lot of the time it’s on the phone,” Steele said.
A four-bedroom home on a 8064sqm lifestyle block on Redoubt Road, Totara Park, was the highest sale of the day at $2.02m. Photo / Supplied
This six-bedroom home on Othello Drive, in Clover Park, Auckland, went to auction with a declared reserve of $690,000 and sold for just over $800,000. Photo / Supplied
A two-bedroom brick and tile flat on Weymouth Road, Manurewa, went for $460,000, the lowest sale price of the day. Photo / Supplied
Dozens of agents, including some from rival agencies, huddled with their buyers or cajoled phone bidders and shouted numbers, with some properties having as many as 15 bidders registered. The mood was festive as waves of buyers came and went, photographers circulated snapping winning buyers and happy vendors, and contract experts steadily processed the paperwork in the next-door offices.
Auctioneer East nearly lost his voice, not surprising when he and chief auctioneer Steele called 1355 bids over the nearly nine-hour day – with a lot of patter in between.
A couple of properties saw fierce fighting, with 10 bidders duking it out over 83 bids for a home and income on Hyperion Drive, Manurewa, that eventually went for just over $1.001m. That price, $81,000 above its CV, was one of two surprising $1m-plus sales. Buyers who missed out on that turned to the next property on the slate, a three-bedroom and sleepout brick and tile on Hokianga Street, Mangere, that went for $1.007m ($93,000 below its CV).
Auctioneer Ben East prepares to bring the hammer down. Photo / Fiona Goodall
An agent has a bidder on the phone. The event moved along at a fair pace, with 38 properties selling under the hammer. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Two fire-damaged properties – one with a completely uninhabitable house in Lynmore Drive, Hill Park, went for $500,000, $230,000 under CV, while another with a good house, but a fire-damaged sleepout in Gray Avenue, Mangere, sold to a trader for $650,000, $290,000 under CV.
The second-to-last sale of the day was for a six-bedroom home with a sleepout on Othello Drive, Clover Park. Agent Charlie Brothers, who had marketed the “must be sold” property with a declared reserve of $690,000 and “vendor motivation at an all-time high” marshalled his colleagues for a rapid-fire, mostly by phone, session that saw the hammer come down at $802,000 – a great result that pleased everybody, Brothers said.
He said the buyer, who will renovate the sleepout, had also picked up another place, a do-up on Matamata Place, Otara, that went for $745,000.
The final sale of the day was $550,000 for a tidy two-bedroom brick and tile on Puhinui Road, Papatoetoe.
While Steele wasn’t prepared – yet – to compare the heaving auction room to the post-Covid market take-off of spring 2020, he said the next big day, planned for spring, might be the one to watch.
“I was very, very proud and delighted. It took a lot of bravery to do this, for the agents to ensure the right buyers were there, getting the owners to trust us, I’ve never been involved in anything like it.
“This event was one of the best in the auction business.”
Ray White Manukau, Manurewa, Mangere and Mangere Bridge director Adam Thomson said that some buyers were in the room for the whole day.
“Some people snapped up multiple properties, including one buyer who landed the winning bid on four properties,” he said.
“I think we’ve established the market bottom, people are confident they’re no longer sliding. They don’t want to look back in three months’ time and say ‘I should have bought [in July]’. There wasn’t a lot of hesitation.”
Thomson said the amount of competition in the room definitely helped to push up prices, some by as much as 10% or 15% over what they would have got three months ago, although he pointed out it was not the frenzy of the post-Covid cycle.
Agents have already been fielding calls from potential vendors, asking when the next The Day is scheduled, and if they can sell their property at the next one.
With the reaction from buyers and sellers, the company is planning regular mega-auction events with the next one slated for October.
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