Mortgagee sales close out 2009 at record levels

Total mortgagee sales for 2009 reached a new record level with 3,024 registered sale transactions where the sale was a mortgagee sale. This annual total was more than 3 times the number of sales in 2008 and more than double the highest prior year (2002).

If for ease of assessment these sales were all of properties then they would represent 4.3% of all sales of residential properties sold in the year.

In terms of trends the monthly figures for 2009 show in the chart below a 3 month decline from the peak month of September which attained a level of 343 sales.

The early months of 2010 will be interesting to observe as the level of listings of mortgagee properties as tracked on realestate.co.nz has been falling for the latter quarter of 2009 and whilst picking up in the January again seems to indicate that the peak certainly in terms of new listings may well be behind us.