''Something I have observed about human behaviour after 33 years in real estate...''
Martin Cooper, owner of the largest Harcourts franchise on the North Shore — Cooper & Co — sums it up well when he says, ''Something I have observed about human behaviour after 33 years in real estate, is that when people are making major buying or selling decisions they do not like uncertainty. In uncertain times, people tend to hold off until they know what is happening. The usual phrase I hear — and you may have heard it before too — is, ‘We’ll just wait and see.’
“Now that we have certainty, I’m certain we are going to see a big uplift in the number of sales as we progress through to Christmas and the New year.''
The graph below tracks the number of residential sales from the 2014 election year to the present, where we can see a dramatic increase in the numbers post-election (2015–2016).
This past decade has seen a steady increase in asking prices while the total stock for sale continues to fall. In fact, the latest report in shows the number of homes for sale has gone down by nearly 50% compared to 10 years ago. In Auckland, the number of new listings fell 9.3% compared to October 2016.
This is also reflected in Auckland’s property asking price, which has been largely static over the past year (between zero and one 1% change in asking price each month). The average Auckland region asking price in October 2017 is $937,922.
We are finding that Auckland home owners are being realistic with price expectations now that we are in a balanced, normal market.
You may have seen an article in the NZ Herald mentioning Auckland house values have dipped for the first time in six years.
I would like to highlight that this dip was very marginal at 0.6% compared to this time last year, and values in Auckland are 90% higher than they were in 2007.
The previous rises were not sustainable and we are simply seeing the housing market stabilising.