Welcome to the School Holidays, and to our Monthly North Shore wrap for March. To view the full report click here.

With Easter next week and the school holidays we’ll be taking a break from updates for the next couple of weeks, so please have a great Easter break and If you’re heading away please be safe on our roads!!

The March REINZ market statistics were released this week so I’ve got some commentary and analysis for you below.  Honestly though it’s just more of the same with nothing to indicate much either way.  The market has slowed and prices have dropped, but that appears to now be in the past with prices seemingly pretty stable again.  Which is great, that means we can all just get on with it!!  

In the adjusting market as we see more choice become available for purchasers; it is proving vital that vendors have the correct marketing strategy and an experienced agent, and of course realistic price expectations are set in order to achieve a successful sale. 

In This Week’s Market Wrap
– REINZ March Report & Market Performance
– Current Market Forces
– Listings & Stock Availability
– Auction Results & Stats
– Coming Soon

Market Performance
Median Prices – Not a huge amount of change here, but the small change we did see was positive with the median price on the North Shore creeping back up over $1m to $1,010,500 for the month of March.  

This is 6.4% below the March ’18 median of $1.08m, but if we compare the last couple of quarters to the previous, it also shows around a 6.5% decline. So the positive news is they don’t appear to be getting any lower!  

Across Auckland the median of $856,000 was also pretty consistent, showing only a slight decline of around 2% – Auckland region prices have been pretty stable for sometime now.

Volume of Sales – This is still where the big change is and when we talk about a dramatic shift, it’s generally the volume we are referring to – not prices so much.  

After only 195 sales on the Shore in February (down 35.9%) we did see a strong increase in volume in March which was expected, from 195 to 304 sales, however it wasn’t as high as normal and still 26% down compared to March ’18.  No signs of any improvement in this area at this stage.

But it’s no just a North Shore thing, it’s the general market with Auckland down 18.2% and the country down 12.9% year on year.

Days on Market – More positive news!!  Days on market was back to 42 days – which seems about right.  And after it blowing out to 63 days in Feb, we all hoped it wasn’t going to stay like that.  42 days is a little long, but not ridiculous. To put it in perspective in the height of the market – this figure was around 30-32 days.

Current Market Forces
A variety of favourable & unfavourable factors continue to affect the property market resulting predominantly in a notable reduction in sales volumes.  Some of these factors are illustrated below:

Despite low interest rates, the legislative changes and difficulty obtaining finance continue to restrain sales volumes.  Hopefully, as we gain more certainty in relation to Capital Gains Tax, we will see volumes rise.

Listings & Stock Availability
The total number of property available on realestate.co.nz on the North Shore this morning, 1886 properties.  It’s starting to tighten again as the pre-easter stock moves – we do find during this period of school holidays, Easter and Anzac that many Vendors and Agents hold off listing till after the break.  Which has probably led to the tightening in stock.

Your marketing campaign is still extremely important right now. Buyers have so much to choose from, so you need to make sure you stand out.

Auction Results I’ve been harping on about how the 4 week average has been pretty consistent for the past, well ages.  However back to back to back weeks of below parr clearance rates have of course led that average to slip, now sitting around 28% combined.  Both companies recorded results about 10% below their standard last week, till last week however, it had been a relatively consistent quarter.  Anyhow – moving on….

Combined Clearance Rates*
4 week average 28%  (2018 – 38%)
This Week 25% (2018 – 35%)

Harcourts C&C – 31% Clearance Rate (8/26)
Barfoot North Shore* – 19% Clearance Rate (6/31)
*Source: Barfoot website Please note clearance rates are for properties sold under the hammer or post negotiation that day (sales the following day are not included)

Coming Soon
Takapuna – A fantastic 3 bedroom townhouse (Available Off Market – please inquire)
Browns Bay – 2 houses on freehold sites, and some land
Northcote – A super cute 3 bed bungalow
Torbay – A tidy 3 bed townhouse
Sunnynook – A full blown do up – or a blow up – great site though!
Forrest Hill – A very tidy renovated 3 bed 2 bath
Castor Bay – A stunning 5 bedroom family home with sea views
  
That’s it from me.  If you have any questions as always just give me a call, otherwise we look forward to seeing you out and about this weekend!