Auckland Housing Market Rapidly Returning To Pre-Election Levels

The Auckland residential housing market is rapidly returning to levels of activity experienced before September’s general election with new listings in October up by a third on those for the previous month, and listings at month-end being at their highest for three months.

“Sales numbers in October, at 939, were right in line with those for September, as was the average selling price at $736,238,” said Peter Thompson, Managing Director of Barfoot & Thompson.

“It always takes some months for the property market to regain lost momentum when interrupted by a lack of certainty.

“This trend shows up in our weekly sales figures. During the first week of October we sold 258 properties, and in the fourth it climbed to 283.

“In the first week of November we anticipate completing close to 300 sales and this, combined with the large number of new listings in October, indicates we will see a significant pick-up in sales numbers in November.

“At 1765, October’s new listings were the highest in a month for 12 months, and eased the shortage of properties for sale.

“At month-end we had 3267 properties on our books, the highest number since July.

“While the average selling price in October was within $2600 of that for the previous month, the median price increased by $20,000 to $655,000, the highest median price ever. From our experience the median price shows greater variation on a monthly basis that the average price.

“A significant contributor to the average sales price remaining at all-time highs is continuing interest in high-end valued properties, which were largely unaffected throughout the election period, and in October we sold 169 properties for in excess of $1 million.

“This represented 18 percent of all sales in the month.

“We also sold 238 properties for under $500,000, which is a quarter of all sales.”
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