Barfoot & Thompson reports strong September sales

The month of September saw Barfoot & Thompson report total sales across the Auckland and Northland region of 917 residential properties. This was 64% increase on the month of September last year and interestingly 36% up on the month in 2007 when the market was entering the recessionary phase.

Seen in context this sales result is strong as it is only 13% down on the month of September 2006 when the market was by any measure very heated.

On a 3 month moving average basis as represented by the chart below the recent sales for the company are strong as measured against the prior 2 years, indicating as the report from Peter Thompson highlights that the spring traditional “bounce” is occurring. The yellow bars in the chart represent the months of September in each of the past 3 years.

In terms of pricing, the average price fell slightly (3%) from the August figure of $532,023 to the September average of $514,890. This average price is up 4% on September last year and 8% off the peak of the market in December of 2007.

The chart below tracks the past 3 years of average price and year-on-year variance and clearly shows the recent strengthening of prices. A situation that Peter Thompson sees as prices having stopped falling and at the same time not overheating.

The other component of the report was the details of new listings. A reported 1,466 new listings were made by Barfoot & Thompson in the month, up 12% on August. This increase very much reflects the total market picture detailed in the NZ Property Report for September published by realestate.co.nz. The total region  of Auckland had 4,015 new listings added to the realestate.co.nz website in September up 15% on August and up 13% on September 2008.