The Auckland housing market continues to move in favour of buyers, with prices easing but sales numbers jumping to their highest January level in three years, said the city's biggest realtor.
The median house price was $875,000, down 5.4 per cent on the month and 0.3 per cent on the year, according to Barfoot & Thompson, which accounts for about a third of all residential property sales in the city. Sales numbers, however, were 653, up 29.6 per cent versus December and 10.1 per cent higher than they were a year earlier.
"It points to vendors accepting that the market has moved in favour of buyers, and they are trimming their expectations as to the price they will accept. However, there is certainly no indication that there is a major decline in prices," said managing director Peter Thompson.
Ongoing population growth, low mortgage interest rates and the recent easing of loan-to-valuation restrictions are expected to keep a floor under demand in the Auckland housing market.
ASB Bank senior economist Jane Turner said some of the increase in sales volumes was catch-up from December when the level of transactions had been weak, due in part to "a holiday timing distortion" as there was quite a short run up to Christmas in terms of working days.
