Auckland Property Market Ends Year On High Note And Promises More In 2021

The Auckland property market ended the year with the strongest December sales numbers and prices on record, with early indications that the New Year break would not dampen sales momentum.

“The market is set to make a strong return in January,” said Peter Thompson, Managing Director of Barfoot & Thompson.

“In December we sold 1479 properties at an average price of $1,092,518 and at the median value of $1,005,000.

“This is our strongest December sales period ever, and the sixth straight month we have sold more than 1000 homes in a month.

“Only once before have we sold more than 1000 homes in a December, and that was in 2014 when the market was building towards the peak of the last price cycle.

“For the past five years our sales numbers in December have averaged less than half this year’s December sales.

“What these sales numbers do not show is the large number of yet to be completed and conditional sales in the pipeline, many of which will show up in January and February sales data, and this will ensure that the market makes a strong start to 2021.

“In December we listed 868 properties for sale, the highest number of new listings in a December for a decade. However, with sales numbers being so high at month’s end we had only 2938 homes on our books, our lowest number in five years.

“The entire market starts the year desperately short of properties for sale.

“For the first time more than half of all homes (54 percent or 801 homes) sold for more than $1 million and, of these, 133 homes, or 9 percent of sales, hit more than $2 million.

“The year-on-year median price increase is $80,075 or 9.5 percent.

“This is not the highest median price year-on-year increase. In 2015 the dollar year-on-year increase over 2014 was $112,038, a percentage increase of 17.4 percent. Other years where the percentage increase was higher was in 2014, when it was 11.1 percent, and 2013 when it was 12.7 percent.

“Lifestyle and rural property sales also finished the year on a high note with 86 properties being sold in December for a combined value of $136 million. This is the highest month’s trading for our lifestyle and rural sector in terms of the number of properties sold and prices obtained.“

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