Welcome to my weekly market wrap. To view the full report click here.

If you ask me how the market is now, I would say not bad, I might even say, pretty good. Especially under $1m.  It’s a great time to buy, prices are the lowest they’ll probably go, and interest rates are crazy low and set to stay there for years. 

But it’s not a bad time to sell now either for most properties, assuming if you’ve adjusted expectations to the new pricing here on the Shore.  All in all though, we are seeing many positive signs for the road ahead.

The short story (a summary of below)
The RBNZ surprised the country with a lowering of the OCR to 1% and the banks followed suit now offering record low rates.  Will this spur an upturn in Auckland house prices?  Probably not in the short term, but it will increase confidence and activity which we are already seeing.  We smashed our Auctions again last week selling 63% under the hammer, while the level of stock available may have just stabilised – maybe…

In This Week’s Market Wrap
– RBNZ OCR Cut
– Will Auckland Bounce Back
– Auction Results
– Listings & Stock Availability
– Coming Soon

RBNZ cut the OCR to 1%
The RBNZ surprised nearly everybody this week by lowering the OCR to just 1%.  This was immediately passed on by banks as we saw floating rates drop to unprecedented lows around 5.2%, and 2 year rates now on offer by the big banks at just 3.75%.  With rates this low, and a little more confidence and activity back in the market, it’s no wonder that we are seeing more and more people get out into the market place.  With prices probably as low as they will go in Auckland, and these rates on offer, it really is a great time to buy.

Will Auckland Bounce Back?
With rates now even lower, will the Auckland housing market reignite? They say Auckland follows Sydney, and the SYdney housing market has recently reignited, so what about us??

What we have to remember is in Sydney their prices fell 10% – 15%, more in some areas, so buyers are being encouraged back in.  But more importantly, their banks recently eased their lending criteria around servicing debt – making lending available to more people.  

Across Auckland, prices haven’t really fallen that much, volume yes, but prices have been pretty static for quite sometime.  Some pockets, like the North Shore for example, have experienced more of a fall in prices so we may see some slight more resurgence here, but that’s unlikely.  And whilst interest rates are extremely low, the lending criteria in NZ is still very tough, so despite the low rates many people cannot get any or enough lending to purchase what they want. This will hamper any upward turn in the market but we can expect a nice stable market for the foreseeable future.

However with further relaxing of the LVR rules expected, and maybe some relaxing of the banks lending criteria, who knows…  Most predictions however point to an upturn maybe late 2020 but more likely 2021-22.

Auction Results
Another strong week in the Auction department.  After hitting 87% last week, Harcourts C&C backed up with solid 63% sold under the hammer this week. For the past 4 weeks now we have averaged a clearance rate of 58% – which is the strongest we have seen it for some time.  Helped of course by a couple of killer weeks.  B&T also had a strong week clearing 43%.  

An interesting point – of all the properties that were sold under the hammer, 75% were around $1m or under.  Another indicator of how strong this sector of the market is at present.

Weekly Results
Harcourts C&C – 63% Clearance Rate (5/8)
Barfoot* – 39% Clearance Rate (9/23)

4 Week Average Per Company
Harcourts C&C – 58% Clearance Rate (25/43)
Barfoot* – 27% Clearance Rate (20/75)

Combined Clearance Rates*
4 week average 37%
This Week 45% (2018 – 40%)

* Harcourts Cooper & Co and B&T In-Room Auctions.  * 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)

Listings & Stock Availability
1304 properties available on the Shore this week, 1318 last week, so a decline, but not by much.  Are we seeing the turn after months of decline?  Let’s give it another week or two before making that call.  Either way the current lack of new listings is significantly adding to activity at open homes and Auctions, with so little competition for new listings.

Coming Soon
Devonport – A beautiful Villa in Narrowneck/Devonport
Campbells Bay – A fantastic modern family home with awesome entertaining and pool
Forrest Hill – A stunning fully renovated 4bed family home with awesome entertaining & pool Browns Bay – 2 houses on freehold sites, and some land
Bayswater – Talk to me – we have a few homes coming in a couple of months
Forrest Hill – A very tidy renovated 3 bed 2 bath
Belmont – A great reno or development on a large freehold site

That’s it from me, have a fantastic weekend and GO THE ALL BLACKS!!