Auckland home sales hold firm in august

Photo credit: Lanz

Auckland home sales held firm in August, according to Barfoot and Thompson.

The New Zealand agent found that transactions remained at record numbers last month, with 1016 properties changing hands. "That's the third time this year we have sold more than 1,000 homes in a month," said Managing Director Peter Thompson.

"In terms of sales numbers we are certainly in a period of high activity as in the previous four years we sold 1000 homes in a month on only one other occasion (in March 2011)."

"However, this high activity is not resulting in prices escalating," added Thompson, noting that prices have edged up by less than 2 per cent in the last three months. Indeed, the average property price in August was $592,395, less than $1,000 above the average price in July 2011.

During August Barfoot & Thompson listed 1417 new properties, up 9.4 percent on listings in July and 10.5 percent higher than in August last year.

"August's new listings were our highest for an August in four years, yet at month end we had only 3777 properties on our books."

"That's the lowest number of properties at month's end in the past 10 years."

"High end properties continue to be in demand, and during August we sold 83 properties for in excess of $1 million."

"In the past 8 months we have now sold on average 71 properties a month for more than a million dollars compared to 47 a month for the same period last year."

"In August we also sold as many homes under $500,000 (503) as we did over that amount (513)."

"These sales figures are a reflection of people's growing confidence across all price segments in the future of the Auckland economy, and the future direction of the Auckland housing market."