KEY POINTS:
It's been the slowest October for Auckland property sales in 10 years, says real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson.
Just 503 residential sales were recorded by the company during the month, compared to 796 in October last year. Average sale prices rose $24,000 from $495,873 to $520,039.
Company managing director Peter Thompson said the market "was impacted by the series of significant announcements relating to the fall-out from the international credit crisis coupled with the normal pre-election hesitancy."
"The impact was clearly on volume rather than price. There was an overall slowdown in the market during October, but we are hopeful that some of the uncertainty will be resolved by the general election this weekend. We would certainly be looking to the winning party to establish a Government as quickly as possible to provide some reassurance in the wider economy."
Thompson said those properties that did sell were getting good prices, particularly in the upper end of the market, where the company had 27 sales between $1m and $2m.
At the end of October the company had 7,090 properties on its books, compared with 5646 at the same time last year.
- HERALD ONLINE
