Auckland house prices dip in latest Barfoot stats

Photo / Paul Estcourt

Barfoot and Thompson's average Auckland house sale price dropped $15,000 from April to May, according to date out this morning.

From April's average sale price of $544,975, May showed an average $529,284, flipping a trend which has been steady all year.

Peter Thompson, Barfoot managing director, said the latest price reversed a three-month trend where the average price for the month was higher than that for the preceding month.

January's average was $515,693, February's $521,887 and March a surprising $581,190.

Thompson said May was good for volumes, though.

"We sold 889 properties in May, a quarter more than we did in April, and 12.2 per cent more than we did in May last year. This combination of rising sales and the average price easing demonstrates that prices are not starting to overheat.

The major issue facing the Auckland market remains lack of choice for buyers," he said.

"In May we listed 1169 new properties. While this was up 13.2 per cent on new listings for April, it was down 15 per cent on new listing in May last year.

"At the end of May we had only 5249 properties on our books, the lowest number for 20 months.

"A contributing factor to the decline in the average sales price was the relatively low number of million dollar plus sales that settled in May," Thompson said.