Welcome to this weeks wrap on all things property here on the North Shore. To view the video please click here to view. For those who prefer to read, you can view the full report here.
In This Week’s Market Wrap:
– The year in review
– Another solid year for us
– Volume still down but stable
– Prices still stable
– Days on Market tighten
– Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays
With just a few days left until Christmas I wanted to wrap up with a quick review of the year. And what a year it’s been with ups and downs and lots of uncertainty with still more in the pipeline but overall and I know I’m a glass half full guy, but it’s been pretty good. Prices are still up, properties are still selling, and the market overall is pretty good. We’ve been so used to a crazy market for sometime but if we continue to compare what we are seeing now, to what we were seeing then, we of course will carry on being disappointed but for those that have adjusted expectations to what we have been seeing these past 12 months, we should all be pretty happy.
I do feel there are going to be some great opportunities for both buyers and sellers over the next year or so and probably more so on the buying side so if I can leave some advice for vendors – don’t put yourself in a position where you need to sell. This is a patchy market and even those properties that we think will be fine are sometimes not going as well as we thought.
Another Solid Year for our Team
My team and I feel extremely privileged to have been a part of over 50 sales again this year and more importantly, being a part of so many peoples journeys. Whilst the number of difficult discussions has increased, we’ve also had the pleasure of selling most of our properties to owner occupiers which has been really nice to see. We’ve sold to more first home buyers & owner occupiers than ever before which is really refreshing, and such a pleasure to be part of as obviously emotions run higher when your buying your own home.
Market Performance
Volume – As I mentioned last week the REINZ stats for November were released and there were no surprises. Volume was up on October as expected, 16% across Auckland and 7% on the Shore – but again volume is still significantly down year on year, 15% across Auckland, and 20% on the Shore – however it has been gradually heading down year on year for 2 years consistently as you can see here.
If we look at the total sales over the past 12 months to November 2017 we saw 4052 here on the Shore, during the previous 12 months to Nov 2016 we saw 5160 and over 6000 the year before that. So thats a pretty significant & consistent fall of 21% this year and 14% the year prior. Across Auckland is pretty similar with a reduction of 23% and 12% respectively. But do we expect volume to continue falling? Not at this rate no, since January we’ve been around 20% down give or take so essentially all year and we haven’t been seeing the rate of fall increase as the year has gone on, it has been pretty consistent and therefore I don’t expect to see another year where we are down a further 20%. Much like prices it appears the volumes have stabilised as well.
Median Prices – Well short of sounding like a broken record which I know I do – they are still stable. I covered this comparison last week but for those that missed it Auckland posted $865k which is up slightly on October & 2% on 2016. On the Shore we saw $1,064,750 which is actually down on October by a couple of grand so nothing to worry about, and it is down 4% on 2016 however November 2016 was the highest we’ve ever seen on the Shore at over $1.1m so no surprises we didn’t achieve those heights again.
Let’s have a look across the past 12 months and now just to clarify I’m no statistician so I don’t even know if I can do this but if we average out the monthly median prices during the 12 months to Nov 17 we get about $1.029m, compared to the 12 months to Nov 2016 and worked out the same way we get $1.008, so we’ve seen an increase of about 2% which is consistent with what we’ve been saying that the rate of price growth has flattened out, the market has almost certainly peaked but the growth we have experienced is holding. Here’s another fun fact for you the average price of all properties sold on the Shore during the 12 months to November 2017 is actually $1.173m.
Days on Market – This remained pretty consistent tightening slightly across Auckland by 2 days to 35 a slipping 1 day on the shore to 36 days. That’s just 1 day longer than November 2016 for both regions. To put it nice and simple though as we review the whole year, B properties should be sold within 30-40 days, A properties a little faster they should be out the door in 20 or so depending on how long the campaign is assuming they are being Auctioned, and our C properties, well they are taking a little longer – or properties that are priced too high.
Stock Levels – The level of Stock available increased significantly throughout November however this has tightened and will continue to do so as we near Xmas, with less than 1700 listings now available on realestate.co.nz – this was nearly 1900 just a couple of weeks ago.
Cooper & Co Auctions
We sold 17/47 at a rate of 36%, a solid improvement on the week prior and not bad given the high volume but it would be nice to see that back up around our average of about 50%. We expect this to improve again this week as stock levels tighten up and people look to secure a sale or purchase before Xmas.
Coming Soon
We have plenty of new listing set to hit the market in the new year, but for the time being with all of our stock nearly sold out, I’m looking forward to a few weeks off.
Windsor Park – A 3 bed 1 bath entry level SOLD IN 6 DAYS!!
Windsor Park – A modern 3-4 bed 2 bath home with great flow
Albany – An amazing high end lifestyle property set on 2Ha in the heart of Albany – VIEW TEASER
Takapuna – A brick 3 bed 1.5 bath semi-detached townhouse
Campbells Bay – A 4 bed 2 bath modern weatherboard on a large site with sea-views
Greenhithe – A spacious 3 bed 2 bath one level home
Milford – A fantastic 2 bed 1 bath brick and tile unit – one of the best I’ve seen here for some time! Torbay – A 3 bed 2 bath on a freehold site with sea views.
Browns Bay – A gorgeous 3 bed 2 bath renovated townhouse
Murrays Bay – A 4 bed 2 bath with great views
Glenfield – A great entry level 3 bed 1 bath modern weatherboard home
Forrest Hill – A(nother) great entry level 3 bed 1 bath modern weatherboard home
Merry Christmas
That’s it from me, and that’s us for the year! My next update will be late January so till then, from my family to yours and on behalf of my team, we wish you a fantastic Christmas and holiday season, and wish you all the best for 2018.
If you are looking for something fun to do with your friends and families over the holiday break please click on the links below which showcase fantastic events and activities across Auckland.
https://www.heartofthecity.co.nz/category-listings/events
https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/whatson/events/north-shore
If your heading away please take care on our roads, and I look forward to seeing you out and about, up north on a beach somewhere – that’s where I’ll be anyway 🙂
Thank you for viewing and as always, if you have any questions by all means just give me a call.
Have a great week & have an awesome Christmas & Holiday season!
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