Auckland sales down, listings and prices up

The arrival of spring has seen a modest increase in interest in the Auckland housing market with more homes listed, the average price edging up though the number of sales fell slightly.

Friday, November 4th 2011, 12:00AM

by The Landlord

"The housing market in October followed a similar pattern to that we have seen for the past four months, and we remain in a relatively stable period in terms of prices and activity," said Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Barfoot.

"The feature that was different was the number of new homes listed for the month. At 1314, this was an increase of 4% on that for last month and the highest number of homes listed since March.

"It created greater choice and raised buyer interest."

Thompson said that in October prices rose by 1.1% on September, with the average price climbing to $553,765.

"As for much of this year, this average price was affected by the strong interest in the high end of the market, and in October we sold 60 homes with a value in excess of $1 million."

He said that over the past two years sales of $1 million-plus homes had exceeded that number on only three occasions.

Over October Barfoot & Thompson sold 727 homes, down 1.5% on September but 29.6% more than in October 2010.

"Far more homes are selling this year than last, but for the past three months sales numbers have been marking time, with the movement between the high and low numbers in that period being 31 homes," Thompson said.

"We expect the current stability in process and sales volumes to remain through to the end of the year."

At the end of October Barfoot & Thompson had a total of 4999 listings, 4.2% more than at the end of September, and the highest number since June.

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