'Spring wake-up' effects on Auckland sales

Harcourts' listings numbers are up and the spring 'wake-up' is being cited. Photo/Brett Phibbs

Auckland's house sales market is showing signs of a traditional 'spring wake-up', an agency boss says, as listing numbers rise at the country's biggest agency.

Chris Kennedy, chief executive of Harcourts, said the number of Auckland residential properties for sale on the company's books had risen from 1248 listings in August to 1325 last month.

And he thinks that could continue through to Christmas.

"The traditional spring "wake-up" in the market is beginning to make itself felt with stock levels up slightly up. That trend is expected to continue as warmer weather lures more vendors into the market," Kennedy said.

"We're on target for a typical seasonal market. There's still plenty of buyer activity out there, and if we can meet that demand with more spring listings, it's going to be a busy run to Christmas," Kennedy said in releasing provisional figures for September.

The average Auckland sale price of a property sold by Harcourts rose 8.6 per cent between last September and last month, to reach $954,787, Kennedy said.

Harcourts listings numbers are 6.2 per cent below the same period last year and only enough to last for 2.6 months at the current rate of sale if there are no new listings, Kennedy said.

Harcourts' provisional data follows Quotable Value information, out yesterday and showing Queenstown prices up the most annually, Wellington strong but Auckland behind those two.

Harcourts Auckland average sale price in August was $955,275 and it also cited the effects of spring when it released data last month.

Harcourts has 190 New Zealand offices and more than 1900 sales consultants throughout the country, it says.

National data is due out in the next week from the Real Estate Institute.