Winter house shopping

What lies in store for the Northland property market this winter? Real estate advertisements are littered with

exclamation marks! And tautology! Vendor Says Sell!! Such literary devices are singularly uninformative marketing ploys so to discover if winter isagood time to sell or buyahouse, who you gonna call?

 

Pete Hendl from Real Kerikeri says between March and May this year house sales are up 50 percent over the same period last year. Indeed, last winter they had their best months all year and in recent times he's noticed an

increase in levels of inquiry.

 

''We're getting Aucklanders who sellaproperty on the North Shore and come here, buyahouse and have money in the bank. More Americans are looking and so are ex-pat Kiwis wanting to get their money out of European banks but by far the majority of buyers are baby boomers who wantagood retirement,'' he says.

 

Gary Williams from LJ Hooker Kerikeri and Paihia says December and January would traditionally be buoyant with winter the worst time to sell a house but, not any more.

 

''The curve has changed over the past couple of years and there's no real difference between the seasons now.''

 

His Kerikeri clients are from Auckland, Christchurch and Whangarei. In Paihia there is traditionallyadominance of overseas buyers wanting apartments but the current winter market is flat. In fact the Paihia real estate market for the whole of last year was depressingly inactive and if sales have increased slightly this year they've come off an exceptionally low base.

 

Kawakawa house sales right now are what Dianne Quinn from Ray White's calls 'plodding along'. There are not a lot of houses for sale in this area but, in saying that, she recently soldahouse within two weeks of it appearing on the market when the average number of days to sell is around 37.

 

Ms Quinn also owns an office in Kaikohe where she reports it's 'busy' with inquiry levels and unconditional sales both registering an upward trend. It's mostly locals buying and she believes that interest rates tracking downwards are the catalyst. ''But if anything is over-priced,'' she suggests, ''it simply doesn't get attention.''

 

According to REINZ, from April 2011 to April 2012 all regions apart from Taranaki and Wellington recorded an increase in house sales and there were two stand-outs-Hawke's Bay and Northland- where sales year-on-year were up over 30%. It looks good on paper yet Allan Inglis from First National in Mangonui and Kaitaia cautions these figures may not be representative of the Far North.

 

''This information is only provided by agents who belong to REINZ and it could mean that if Whangarei sales are up, that will drag the whole of Northland statistics up but not reflect what's actually happening further north.''

 

He says residential house sales in Kaitaia and Mangonui are 'sluggish' to the extent they're back to 2009 levels and farm sales aren't any better. Only two dairy farms have been sold in his area in the past six months. That's not to say there aren't 'moments of excitement' but they're not consistent.

 

Where does this leave us? Probably with a crystal ball orapiece of string. But as one Bay of Islands woman remarked, the other day and for the first time in her 40-year history of house ownership, someone knocked on the door to ask if she was interested in selling. The couple asking were from Christchurch and said 'a few' of their

friends wanted to relocate to the north.

 

She is open to negotiation if the price is right, she exclaimed!!