“unprecedented” demand drives auckland properties for sale to new low

Estate agent Barfoot & Thompson reported unprecedented demand for real estate with competition between buyers seeing houses sell “within a tighter time frame than at any time in the last decade”.

“In June we listed only 1189 properties, while our sales for the month numbered 1059,” said Peter Thompson, Managing Director of Barfoot & Thompson.

“This is the closest we have come to selling the same number of properties as we have listed in a month in the past 11 years.

 “At the end of June we had only 2873 properties on our books, the first time our end of month listings have dipped below 3000 properties in the past 11 years.

 “However, this competition for properties has so far not led to prices breaking through the price ceiling established in March,”

Indeed, for the third consecutive month the average Auckland house price showed little movement, with June’s average price reaching $649,945, an increase of a little over $5000 on the average price during May.

“This is less than a 1 percent increase on May’s average price, and since March the average price has risen by only $4017,” said Thompson.“While the average sales price points to relative stability, the median selling price has shown a modest increase, which at $590,000 for June is $20,000 higher than in May and is $10,000 higher than in March.”

During June Barfoot & Thompson sold 380 homes for less than $500,000, and a further 373 for between $500,000 and $750,000. A total of 144 homes sold for in excess of $1 million, the same number as in May.

Property sales at 1059 for June was the fourth consecutive month that sales were in excess of 1000 for the month. The last time sales were this consistently high was 9 years ago in the first half of 2004.