Auckland house price rebound: Auctions busy as buyers aim to purchase before values start increasing

Five bidders waged war at auction for the chance to live at this Sealy Rd home in Torbay, paying $1.857 million, or about 10 per cent above its CV, for its large block and sea views.

With new data showing almost twice as many newly listed homes are being sold at auction, Ben Leahy heads inside an auction room to find busy bidding wars and a returning fear of missing out.

First-home buyer Jeevan Nair could feel the auction’s tide turning against him.

He’d waged a 20-minute bidding war for an Auckland four-bedroom home on the North Shore, but was now on his limit as bids slowed to $1000 jumps.

The full house of buyers at Barfoot & Thompson’s Takapuna auction last Thursday chattered and waited for Nair’s next move.

Their eagerness seemed to match with new data by property website OneRoof showing twice as many new homes now going on the market are being listed for sale at auction as compared to earlier in the year.

Nair summoned a last bluster of confidence and tried to break his opponent’s will with a $3000 bid instead of a $1000 bid - pushing the Chartwell Ave home in Glenfield’s sale price up to $1.286 million.

But his rival’s response had by now become robotic. Just five seconds later, they shot their arm up to raise the new build’s price a further $1000 to $1.287m.

Nair had lost at his first auction ever, yet he remained philosophical.

“We learned so many things,” he said.

Having only begun to house-hunt with his partner three months earlier, he feels there isn’t time to lose and is keen to jump straight back into looking for the next house.

He believes Auckland house prices could start rising soon and wants to buy before that happens - a belief that seemed to be shared by other buyers the Herald spoke to when attending last Thursday’s auction at random.

“I don’t feel like house prices will keep falling. Now they are stable, and they might even start to go high again,” Nair said.

The Chartwell Ave home in Glenfield Nair missed out on. Photo / Diakrit

He believes home loan interest rates are the key, saying he feels like they won’t rise too much higher.

And should interest rates being to instead begin fall, Nair believes it would likely attract more buyers back to the market and drive house prices up again.

His strategy, therefore, is to buy now in the hope of getting the lowest house prices, while suffering the sting in the tail of paying high interest rates on his mortgage.

“Interest rates are always a problem. We will definitely struggle, but at least we can say, ‘We are staying in our own home’,” he said.

While Nair and last Thursday’s auction are just one tiny slice of market activity, new OneRoof data suggests other buyers might be feeling the same way.

The data shows about 30 per cent of homes newly listed for sale on OneRoof in July are set to go to auction, as compared to only 15 per cent or less of homes listed for sale earlier in the year.

The renewed auction confidence also seems to tally with new data by analysts CoreLogic showing Auckland house prices appear to be close to the bottom of the market, as values fell just 0.6 per cent last month.

The battle of Torbay: Sold for $140,000 above CV

The sea views on offer at a Sealy Rd home being sold at the auction.

Five out of eight homes sold at Thursday’s Barfoot & Thompson auction.

And five bidders faced off in the day’s biggest battle for a two-storey North Shore house on Sealy Rd in Torbay.

A little older and rougher on the inside than some other homes, its big attraction is its harbour views and large 812-square metre section of land.

That led its sale price to soar to $1.857m - or $140,000 above its council valuation (CV).

Vineet Sodhani and his partner - a stylish couple who moved here from India’s Bombay a year ago, having done well in their careers - were among the losing bidders.

It’s the fourth home they’ve missed out on in six months.

They also said they want to buy soon because prices may be about to rise. Yet they thought the Sealy Rd home sold above its value.

As they chatted to the Herald outside the auction room, a young couple they’d bid against stopped by to compare notes, greeting them with: “Hello rivals.”

Noting the home had sold about 10 per cent above its CV and was at risk of losing its harbour view to future housing developments, both couples were surprised by the bidding’s competitiveness.

A short time later, Sealy Rd’s successful buyers wandered out.

Clutching a gifted bottle of wine, they smiled in acknowledgement of the adulatory real estate agents lining their exit in a victory parade.

The auction had been nerve-racking, they said.

Having been planning to move house, they said they felt pressure to buy because the market appeared to have “bottomed out”.

Last stand at Long Bay

Inside the modern kitchen of the Cavalli Rd home in Long Bay.

The day’s final auction also proved hard-fought.

Located just 12 kilometres from the Sealy Rd house, the final home in Cavalli Rd in Long Bay eventually sold for a similar price at $1.866m.

While more modern and comfortable than Sealy Rd, it is also hemmed in on all sides by other new-build houses.

This time, two sleek professionals stepped up to battle it out.

Appearing to be real estate agents acting on behalf of the actual bidders, they talked into phones pressed against their ears.

Sharply dressed with a glistening ring on her finger, the woman bidding on behalf of the buyers who would ultimately win the auction seemed to be at home in an auction’s pressure cooker.

Her commanding voice grabbed the auctioneer’s attention - and made it easy to overhear as she marshalled her buyer over the phone with World Cup-winning urgency.

“This is it ... this home will sell ... this is your dream home ... no Christmas shopping this year,” she stressed.

With the price hovering around $1.8m, she asked her buyer for the freedom to offer as much as $1.82m if necessary so she could concentrate on making strategic bids.

But barely had she negotiated this permission before bidding surged past $1.82m and she was asking to go up again to $1.85m.

Then bidding swept past even $1.85m. Now the strain showed.

Her rival bidder had been keeping his arm partly raised in a way that seemed to suggest he could bid all day and that lowering his arm was a waste of time.

Yet now his arm sagged.

Seeking to encourage him, the auctioneer remarked that his rival - the sharply-dressed woman - appeared relaxed.

Hearing this, the woman told her buyer to hang on: “I’m going to go stare at him.”

As it turned out, the intimidation factor wasn’t necessary - the rival bidder had cracked.

“It’s yours,” she beamed down the phone line as the hammer rang out.