Suburbs meet varied needs

Owairaka Maunga or Mt Albert the Auckland. Photo / Kenny Rodger

Although the Auckland property market showed signs of recovery at the end of last year, the picture is much more complex than that, according to four top-selling real estate agents. Their experiences show marked variations in sales activity across different suburbs and in different price brackets.

Lesley Hawes, of Ray White Kingsland, says: "The last three months of 2009 were remarkably good, with excellent sales numbers and results for our owners. Most of the properties had multiple offers on them and the popular theory among the media was that a recovery/boom was occurring. In my opinion, this was definitely not so. The apparent lift in the sales volume and shorter days on the market were caused, quite simply, by a lack of supply."

Hawes has been in real estate for 16 years and with Ray White for 12 of those. For the past six years, she has been helped by her daughter Ruth and they cover city fringe suburbs such as Western Springs, Grey Lynn, Ponsonby, St Marys Bay, Mt Albert, Avondale, Sandringham and Kingsland, selling about 100 properties a year priced from $200,000-plus to $2.3 million.

Hawes adds: "Naturally what has happened since Christmas is that the good news has spread; house owners have become interested in selling again because of the excellent results achieved in late-2009. A lot more houses have come on the market, the demand has stayed the same and we are now experiencing a market where there is more choice and less urgency.

"My prediction is 'steady as she goes' for the next three months, with plenty of choice for buyers and still very reasonable interest rates."

For Matty Ma of Harcourts Albany, the school holidays were quiet on the local front but busier with overseas buyers. Ma, who has achieved more than $180 million in settled sales since she joined Harcourts in 2001, specialises in both residential and lifestyle property, with listings across the North Shore and as far north as Warkworth - ranging in price from $300,000 to $6 million.

"The last three months were as I imagined they would be - quiet, particularly from New Zealanders, which I think is understandable after the recession and with politicians' tax talk disturbing people's confidence and many taking a precious holiday after the difficult times," Ma says. "That's why I hardly did any marketing in 'traditional' New Zealand media over the Christmas period.

"On the contrary, because the Chinese segment of the local market still has good energy and funding support from mainland China, some of my vendors achieved great benefit from the advertising we did in New Zealand's Chinese media over the holidays."

However, Ma says that in the past four weeks she has been swamped with listings, particularly do-ups, long-term rentals and properties never on the market before. She says owners are concerned about Government policy changes and want to have cash in hand before they decide on their next move. "Looking ahead, I believe both public confidence and investment activity in the real estate market will be healthier and, alongside that, the building industry will be busier with both new housing and renovations. "

Gary Wallace of Bayleys also reports strong interest from overseas buyers in his patch - Parnell and Remuera.

"With immigration, there's always good buyer demand in my market," Wallace says. "It feels like it's a different market - like it has its own 'microclimate'."

Wallace says he had a "fantastic November and December", with any listings coming on to the market snapped up. He cites the example of a Chinese man who paid $4.5 million for a Parnell house so his daughter had somewhere safe to live while she was at university.

Wallace, in his fifth year as a real estate agent, says he is on target for a record year despite the global downturn. And he has been "inundated" with listings after the positive end to last year, when "it was very much a vendors' market".

"When we had this global meltdown, a lot of people who own their homes and weren't under pressure just sat tight," he says. "Now we seem to have turned the corner and a lot more property has come to market."

Wallace expects the market to follow its traditional pattern of high turnover during the first part of the year before things "quieten a bit in winter".

Karin Cooper, of Barfoot & Thompson St Heliers, saw feverish buying in the period leading up to Christmas before things slowed during the holiday season.

"Coming up to Christmas there's a lot of people who have sold their homes and want to secure their next home before Christmas," says Cooper, who has been with Barfoot & Thompson for 10 of her 16 years in real estate. "There were a good number of quality properties on the market and a lot of keen buyers."

Cooper, whose patch includes St Heliers, Mission Bay, Kohimarama, Glendowie and Orakei, says this scenario was a far cry from a year ago, when sales were subdued.

Looking ahead, Cooper expects activity to stay strong, driven by residents trading up within the bays and the usual migration from Grammar zone suburbs when families no longer have children at high school.

"It's been a good market to be selling in," says Cooper, "but I think it will be a good market for sellers and buyers as not all the new listings have come on the market yet. Buyers have been very aggressive and I think we'll continue to see that if they think it's the right home for them."