The volume of residential properties sold by Auckland’s biggest real estate agency rose from August to September yet median prices fell by $20,000 in just 30 days, showing people paid less when they bought.
Barfoot & Thompson sold 889 residential properties in Auckland, Northland, Coromandel and Bay of Plenty in August.
But that rose 21% to 1032 last month, which managing director Peter Thompson has attributed to “the spring buying season”.
However, median prices fell $20,000 from $950,000 in August to $930,000 last month.
It’s a big drop compared to what was happening three years ago.
Barfoot & Thompson recorded its highest median price for the Auckland-dominated market at $1.24 million in the heady post-pandemic days of November 2021.
So the latest median last month of $930,000 is 25% below that.
Unsold stock volumes remain elevated: late last decade, the agency only had about 2500 to 3000 listings during any one month.
But throughout this year, listings have remained continually elevated, in the high 5000s to early 6000s.
Unsold listings hit a high of 6268 unsold properties in March this year.
That was an 11-year record.
For example, in March 2014, only 3570 unsold properties were on the agency’s books, so unsold stock rose 75%.
September’s Barfoot & Thompson median price drop has prompted some in the sector to say that it reflects vendors getting more realistic in their expectations.
Thompson said: “It’s a great start to the spring buying season.”
New listings rose from 1622 in March to 1781 last month.
So more vendors are choosing that agency to list their homes with.
Barfoot & Thompson has 88 offices in Northland, Auckland, Tauranga and Whangamatā. It has 2800 contractors, employees, frontline and support centre staff.
That includes about 1500 contractors who are the licensed salespeople.
Despite the downturn, those numbers did not drop, “but we do a lot of training”, Thompson said last month.
People have been made redundant from other industries and see possibilities in real estate, he noted.
The rental division manages just over 21,000 properties.
Today’s figures are a reflection of the continuing downturn.
In August, Liam Dann wrote that Auckland and Wellington house prices have fallen 19.7% and 27.6% respectively since January 2022.
Inflation-adjusted, the falls are around 31% for Auckland and 38% for Wellington, worse than the GFC, Dann wrote.
First-home buyers now make up 25% of purchases, indicating improved affordability despite the economic downturn.
Dann says this isn’t a downturn but a crash, which could take years to recover from.
Figures from Kelvin Davidson of Cotality also out today reflected Auckland’s muted activity.
He noted “several economic sentiment indicators or surveys for Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland remain subdued, and this cautious mood is clearly pervading the property market too”.
The value of homes in many city suburbs is down 20% to 24%, he noted.
About 80 properties are listed on Trade Me for mortgagee sale.
The highest-priced mortgagee sale property is 20-20a Kalmia St, Ellerslie, where plans were consented to develop a 56-unit apartment and office scheme.
The property is only 100m from the Ellerslie train station and part of it was a functioning bowling club, advertising said.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.