House Buyers Return To Auckland Market

Buyers are starting to return to the Auckland housing market, with sales reaching their highest number in 10 months and prices holding firm with those being paid over the previous two months.

“March showed a modest but positive improvement in trading,” said Peter Thompson, Managing Director of Barfoot & Thompson.

“Buyer confidence lifted, and in the month, we sold 765 homes.

“While this is well down on the number of sales we normally make in March, sales were up 86.6 percent on those in February, and the highest number of sales we have made in a month since May last year.

“The pipeline of conditional sales we made in the month also increased significantly, indicating that there is likely to be a strong flow of sales going unconditional in April.

“While sales were made across all price segments, we sold 60 homes for more than $2 million, a strong recovery for property in this price segment.

“This is more than the combined number of homes we sold in this price category in the first two months of the year.

“The median price in March at $1,025,000 and the average price at $1,102,933 for the month were on a par with the prices paid in February and both figures have shown stability over the past three months.

“Based on these figures there is a greater reason to believe from a price perspective the market has plateaued rather than is continuing to fall.

“The price decline on a year-on-year basis is now sitting between 10 and 13 percent, and a number of buyers decided that rather than sit on the sideline, March was the time to re-enter the market.

“New listings for the month at 1460 were strong in comparison to the first two months of the year but not as strong as those for March in previous years.

“The number of listings at month end at 4751 are in line with where they normally are at the end of March and means that those buyers who are prepared to make a commitment have a good range of properties from which to choose.

“The rural and lifestyle markets showed modest signs of better trading in March with some new listings, and sales reaching $59 million. However, they lacked the consistency starting to appear in the Auckland urban market.

“Turnover in these markets in March was the highest for four months but buyers remained reluctant to commit and bank lending remained challenging.”

Barfoot & Thompson knows Auckland best. It is the city’s leading real estate company, selling around one in three Auckland residential homes, significantly ahead of all other competitor brands.

For further information, contact Peter Thompson, Managing Director, Barfoot & Thompson, telephone 09 307 5523 or 027 453 5931. www.barfoot.co.nz.

Released on behalf of Barfoot & Thompson by Network Communication (Dennis Lynch) telephone 021 963 733 Dennis.lynch@networkcommunication.co.nz

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