What agency heads are saying about spring listings coming up: Part two

In the capital, the city’s two big independent agencies are readying themselves for the spring selling season and preparing their vendors to have realistic expectations. 

Wellington has had the sharpest decline but also the sharpest incline, explains Tommy’s Real Estate senior agent, Nicki Cruickshank. “What goes up has to come down but it’s made things more affordable. First home buyers who were having to pay $1.1 million or $1.2 million for a home can now pay under $1 million,” she says. First home buyers are not competing against investors, they have the field to themselves for now.   

Speaking in early September, Nicki thought there would be more listings in the pipeline by then, but the new supply has been a bit slower than she thought. She doesn’t believe economist forecasts that the house price falls still have a ways to go.

“I think the bottom is near because there’s an increase of buyers coming back to the market,” she says. At the same time, some homeowners have been a bit scared off by daily headlines on house price falls. 

Potentially, there could be a lack of supply soon, which will start pushing prices up, perhaps encouraging a few more people to sell, suggests the Tommy’s agent.

Craig Lowe, Managing Director of Wellington agency, Lowe & Co says he’s seeing the normal flow of listings and appraisals he would expect to see at this time of year.

“The amount of houses coming to the market almost doubles between winter and summer, there will be a significant lift over the next few months, and this year won’t be any different,” says Craig.  

“The question is, how long will homes stay on the market for?” he asks. “We’re probably in for a summer of lots of houses hitting the market and days on market of up to 45 to 55 days,” he says. 

The Lowe & Co director remembers when the market was very hot last year, and there were just 330 properties for sale across the whole city. At its peak, the Wellington market will have over 1000 listings. On September 5, there were 770 homes on the market in the city, and he’s expecting numbers to be over 1000 over spring summer unless the market changes.

As long as it’s priced right, it will sell, he says. “And you can ruin any sale with a misaligned price.”. 

The REINZ indications are that prices have fallen anywhere from 15 to 19% off the peak of September/October 2021 and that’s a huge discount, says Craig. There’s no indication that they will drop more than that on a long term basis. 

“If you have a good home, and have owned it for an average of seven years, you should be very happy,” says Craig. 

His message to those trying to time the market as a buyer or a seller is, don’t bother. “Nobody knows what the future holds, you just can’t time the peak as a seller and you can’t time the bottom as a buyer unless you’re very lucky.”

In Queenstown, Sotheby’s has cleared a whole lot of listings and it’s about to have a big refresh, adds the NZSIR head.

Buyers are still making their offers subject to sale in the city, she adds. And sellers are still finding that person is the best buyer as long as they’re realistic on the other end (of selling their own home). Days on market are around 48, compared with 23 days last year, and the Tall Poppy business owner is expecting this might rise to up to 60. This is partly because of old stock that came on in March and April with vendors still expecting prices that were being achieved in November and December 2021.   

One trend the Tall Poppy agent is seeing is people who bought land to build on are now buying near new homes because building their own home has become too hard. 

“They were intending to build but they can’t nail down fixed price contracts (with builders),” she explains.

In August, listing numbers have crept up and appraisals are coming in, so the agency is getting ready any time from now for spring selling. Anton says he’s been quite happy with the flow of appraisals coming through.

In terms of seller expectations, the attitude is everyone has got to be realistic. He’s expecting prices to plateau out in the coming months. Prices have dropped around 15% to 20% from the prices reached in November/December in the Bay of Plenty area, says the Tremains MD

Supply last spring didn’t happen until quite late around November. December was a bit of a concern because everything ran out, there wasn’t a lot of stock, he says. 

At the other axis of the Golden Triangle, Simon Lugton of Lugtons Real Estate based in Hamilton, says in the last quarter of 2021, listings were down then bounced back to make it a very strong November. This year, he expects the flow of new listings to be more traditional with October and November the strongest months and September still building. 

Listing numbers have already been building in August up 36% after a subdued July, says Simon. His agents were doing a reasonable number of appraisals, though how many of them are in the imminent pipeline was yet to be seen.

Those selling are more likely genuine owner-occupiers trading up or down and taking job transfers, he says. 

Simon’s tip to sellers is, as the days on market have lengthened into the early 40s, to give themselves enough time before Christmas to get a sale confirmed. November is a bit late to bring their home to the market, sellers should think about coming on at the end of September, early October if they want a sale, he advises.