As the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand reported the lowest number of June property sales since 2010, agents are switching their tactics and talking tough with their vendors.
Harcourts agent Teide Grice, who works with Diego Traglia and a team of nine agents across Auckland’s west and north west, said that getting listings was not the problem.
“People still want to list. The market is challenging out there ... we have to get a bit harsher,” she said.
“In Massey alone there are over 100 three-bed, one- or two-bath listings. They’re a dime a dozen. But give the market [a] fully renovated, nicely done house and we’re getting a nice and shiny price.”
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She pointed to the recent sale of a fully renovated five-bedroom house with a studio that sold for $1.16 million after receiving multiple offers.
“We still use auctions to test the market for unconditional buyers. But if they’re looking for a bargain with cash deals, we’re not going to do that,” she said, pointing to a buyer who tried it on with a cash offer of $750,000 for a home that eventually sold for $860,000.
Her comments come as REINZ reported that the number of houses for sale in New Zealand in June hit 26,271, nearly double the number for sale in June last year, while the number of residential property sales dropped from 7629 in June 2021 to 4721 to June this year. In Auckland, the number of sales dropped 43.3% over the same period.
David Findlay, who owns Harcourts offices in Mount Albert and Mission Bay, said that negotiating deals behind the scenes was helping keep sales up. “We’d have 97 listings on the market, but another 50 or so are listed but off-market," he said.
A house on Peterhouse Place, in Auckland's West Harbour, sold for $1.08m after a pre-auction offer was accepted just a week on the market. Photo / Supplied
“Vendors want to sell, but they don’t want to be seen to be on the market for too long. So we bring in buyers from a similar property we’ve been showing. There are a lot in that $2m price range in St Heliers or $1.2m in Mount Albert who don’t want the publicity.”
Findlay sees a glimmer of movement at the start of this month, as the number of people at open homes picks up to six or seven per viewing, from a low of zero or one earlier this year. “We’ve got a lot of domino sales [contracts] subject to sale of the buyers’ own homes. Back in 2019, these might have been two-house chains, but now we’re seeing four or more [in a chain]," he said.
“We’ve just had a chain of four where the second house in the chain fell over as they didn’t settle with their buyer and then all the others fell too.”
A three-bedroom boathouse-style house, one of the few on the waterfront on Tamaki Drive, St Heliers, sold at auction this week for $4.1m. Photo / Supplied
He said current market conditions had brought out the bargain hunters: “Savvy buyers who call us to ask which [vendor] is desperate and we’ll buy that,” he said.
REINZ figures show that sales by auction accounted for 12% of all sales June, down from 26% in June last year. But this week's auctions in Auckland yielded some highlights. Barfoot & Thompson agents Paul Neshausen and Nicki O'Sullivan had success when the hammer came down at $4.1m for a three-bedroom house on Tamaki Drive, St Heliers.
And a three-bedroom house on Peterhouse Place, in West Harbour, sold for $1.08m after the owner accepted a pre-auction offer.
