Auckland house prices reach 22-month high, sales rise

Auckland house prices reached a 22-month high in October and the volume of sales rose from a year earlier, suggesting a revival in confidence in property is encouraging both buyers and sellers.

Wednesday, November 4th 2009, 11:06AM 3 Comments

by Paul McBeth

The average sale price in Auckland rose 5.8% to $544,745 last month from September, the most since December 2007, according to Barfoot & Thompson, the city's biggest real estate firm. Prices are 4.8% higher than in the same month of 2008.

"It is a sure sign Aucklanders have shrugged off their concerns about the future, and are moving forward with their plans around home ownership," said managing director Peter Thompson.

"Sellers returned to the market in strength."

There were 1,676 new listings in October, the most since March last year. Barfoot sold 871 properties, a 73% jump from October 2008.

In its property management division, the average weekly rent achieved rose 4.9% to $403m, the biggest increase in rents in seven years. The number of properties let rose 8.4% to 760.

Paul is a staff writer for Good Returns based in Wellington.

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Comments from our readers

On 5 November 2009 at 11:23 am rob said:

prices were up because of sales of $million dollar props. being up.
you neglect to mention that actual sales turnover of houses dropped by 5% from the previous month

On 5 November 2009 at 5:53 pm Gary said:

exactly written by the vendors who are doing alright for themselves as they are able to sell off property. Just weight until interest rates start going up hope you are saving your pennies while it is going good.

On 6 November 2009 at 1:40 pm Lance said:

Yesterday I looked a seven properties for sale in the Henderson, Ranui area. All these properties were owned by investors and were rented out. The owners of the above houses had bought them less two yrs ago and were now trying to quite them. In a couple of cases for $50,000 less than they bought them for. Why?