Auckland property prices steady in July

Barfoot and Thompson director Peter Thompson says the overall picture is stable, but there are some early signs that the recent mortgage interest rate rises are beginning to have an effect, with July sales totalling 899, compared to 1,000 the previous month.

Thompson says although the total number of sales for July is on par with the same month last year, the week by week analysis of sales during the month is probably more informative. “For three out of the four weeks during July total sales were behind the comparable week last year, and a drop off was particularly noticeable in the last two weeks of the month.”

He says there were two other important factors during the month – the July school holidays and the particularly bad weather that Auckland experienced.

The July average sale price was $546,773; up from $537,671 in June but below the high of $557,546 achieved in May. There were also 1671 new listings onto the market during the month.

“On the property management front, it was a very busy month for our rentals team with a total of 689 houses and units let compared to 586 the previous month. However, the average weekly rent eased back a little to $367 from $375 in May and $373 in June,” Thompson says.