The Auckland property market has virtually ground to a halt and prices are falling, fresh figures from the city's biggest real estate agency group suggest.
Barfoot & Thompson has reported sales fell to 453 in April, down 50 per cent from April a year ago and down 28per cent from 632 sales in March.
The number of new listings in the month was almost quadruple the number of houses that actually sold in April.
Barfoot & Thompson's are the first figures to emerge from the housing market for April and are closely watched by financial market observers because they are an early indication of nationwide figures from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand due at the end of this week. Barfoot & Thompson generated 39 per cent of Auckland's sales in March.
The average sale price reported by the firm in April fell to NZ$520,380 from NZ$522,331 the previous month and is now down 7 per cent from its peak of NZ$559,903 in December last year. The April average is down 2.2 per cent from a year ago.
Barfoot & Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson said a higher proportion of sales (48 per cent vs 42 per cent) were in the bracket below NZ$500,000, but this had not dragged the average price down much.
"Logically it could be expected that this would reduce the average price - but that wasn't the case," Thomspon said in a statement that said property prices continued to hold despite low turnover and that there was no evidence of forced selling, despite reports to the contrary in the media.
"This suggests two things. That new buyers entered the market encouraged by the wide range of stock available and that price discounting is nowhere near as prevalent as media reports would have us believe," he said.
The number of houses listed as available for sale rose to 7,843 at the end of April from 7,379 at the end of March and was 76 per cent higher than a year ago. Barfoot & Thompson said 1,590 new listings were made in April, down from 2,049 in February, suggesting fewer new houses were being listed.
"There is no evidence of vendors being forced to sell," Thompson said.
