Some active markets experienced their best start to the year in three years
Barfoot & Thompson has confirmed that Auckland’s housing market finally entered a new growth cycle – with the highest number of sales in a January for four years.
The real estate company’s latest data revealed that the average price for the month was $951,631, which was in line with the prices for the last three months but was 2.6% ahead of last January’s average price of only $927,181. Meanwhile, the median price jumped from $827,500 in January 2019 to $885,000 last month – the most significant price movement seen in the region.
Peter Thompson, managing director of Barfoot & Thompson, commented that the recent findings were an extremely confident start to the year – with strong sales, rising prices, and increase in new listings.
“Both the average and median prices were up on those for December last year, and buyers were active across all price segments and prepared to pay near-record prices,” Thompson said, as reported by Landlords.co.nz.
Read more: Report reveals more properties coming to the market
Thompson said the reported figures proved that Auckland’s housing market is finally entering a new growth cycle.
“Although new listings for the month at 1,080 were sound - and up 58% on those for December and 11.1% in January last year - the market is still tight in terms of choice. At month’s end, we had 3,537 properties on our books, down 18.4% on the number in January last year and only on a par with the average number of listings for the previous three months,” he said.
Meanwhile, the rural and lifestyle markets have seen their best in three years, with a high number of sales and excellent prices at the beginning of the year.
“The active markets led to a renewed interest in development land from those buyers unable to find an existing property that met their demands,” Thompson continued. “Growing numbers attended auctions and open homes during the month. As with the metropolitan market, new listings, while increasing over those in late 2019, were insufficient to meet demand.”
