SLOW START FOR 2023

By Darren Szaszy, Barfoot & Thompson, Pukekohe

The Auckland residential property market experienced its lowest month of trading in January for more than 20 years. We sold 431 residential properties, which has to make it one of the slowest months for us in the past two decades. January is, invariably, the lowest month for sales in any year, but this one stands out because of its lack of buyer commitment.

On a brighter note, there is a good level of buyer interest in the marketplace with our agents reporting that attendances at open homes throughout January were higher than they were in the last quarter of last year. However, buyers continued to sit

Darren Szaszy

on the sidelines in January. This is, presumably, due to waiting for prices to fall even further, people are cautious about mortgage interest rates, or they are finding it too challenging to obtain financing. The level of interest being shown could indicate buyers may be anticipating the bottom of the price cycle is not far o .

In the last quarter of 2022, the median sales price stabilised around $1,075,000; in January it dipped again by 6.3 per cent and now sits at $1,000,000. This price level is down 15.3% on where it was at the same time last year and where the median price was sitting in early 2021.

Vendors were still listing property for sale in January - we listed 920 in total. This number is solid for the first month of any year, but it is down by about a quarter on where it has been for the past three months. We had 4,747 properties on our books at the end of January, which is a quarter higher than our total at the same time last year.

As is normal for the first month of the year, buyers in the ‘$2 million and over’ price bracket were lightly represented in the market with only 30 of these properties selling. Having said that, high-end buyers’ presence in the market tends to become more prominent from March onwards.

The rural and lifestyle markets reflected the same trading challenges as in urban areas during January, with vendors and buyers holding di erent views regarding value. Sales in these two markets for the month (at $23.6 million) gave us our lowest month for sales (by dollar value) in 28 months.

with Jo-Ann Day-Townsend