Median price also increased
House sales activity in Auckland continues to rise, with Barfoot & Thompson’s latest data revealing that sales in November have reached a four-year high.
The real estate agency saw 960 sales in November – a 16.5% increase on October’s sales and a 2% increase on the 941 sales seen at the same time last year.
Kiri Barfoot, director of Barfoot & Thompson, said the figures were the highest in a month since March this year and the highest they have been in November since 2015.
“Activity has not returned to the heydays experienced at the height of the previous price cycle but Auckland sales have certainly shrugged off the modest turnover and price movements experienced over the past two years,” Barfoot said, as reported by Landlords.co.nz.
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Meanwhile, November’s median price of $891,000 increased 5.8% on the average for the past three months and 4.7% on last November’s median price of only $850,750.
Barfoot pointed out that a declining pool of properties on the market may have prompted the prices to increase.
“In November we listed 1,517 new properties and, although this is one of our higher monthly numbers this year, it is our lowest in a November for 11 years,” she said. “At month end we had only 3,703 properties on our books, close to a quarter lower than we had at the same time last year.”
“The end result is that when high quality properties reach the market there is determined competition among committed buyers which is driving prices higher.”
She added that they saw a high number of signed up and conditional sales in the pipeline, “so the prospects of November being a rogue month is unlikely and we see an active market remaining through to year end and continuing into the first quarter of 2020.”
