Super City sales down 20% on last May

Auckland’s largest real estate agency saw 821 sales in May, as compared to the 1,027 sales it recorded in May of last year.

While the number of sales did represent an increase of 23% on April’s 667 sales, the figures do point to a far quieter market.

Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson says that given the onset of winter and where the market is at, May activity was typical of what we have seen over the past 18 months.

“Auckland is now well into a new, more traditional market cycle. It’s one of very stable prices and sales numbers that have settled below the five-year peak sales years of 2012 to 2016.”

He says the market remains active because buyers are there and there is a good number of properties for sale.

“The prices that properties are changing hands at is consistent with those for last year and only marginally below those for 2016.”

According to the agency’s data, the average sales price in May was $928,992. That’s much the same as it has been in recent months but slightly up (by 1.1%) on last May’s average price of $918,465.

May’s median price of $850,000 was the highest it has been for five months and is also up by 3.7% on last May’s median price of $820,000.

Thompson says that what is clear is that the Auckland market has come through the concerns created by the now abandoned capital gains tax and sales are settling at current levels in a robust fashion.

“While there are no signs of a price retreat, nor are there signs of prices rising. It is a situation likely to remain until spring.”

Sales were made across all price segments in the month with more than a third of sales achieving a price of $1 million or more, he adds. “Sales for under $500,000 represented 9.4% of sales.”

Meanwhile, the agency saw 1,186 new listings in May, which was in line with the number of new listings in April.

That left the agency with 4,319 number of properties on their books at the end of the month end. Thompson says this was marginally down on those for April and those for May last year.