Average house price falls $15,000

Auckland’s average house sale price dropped by just over $15,000 in the past month while its median fell $10,000, according to new data out yesterday from Barfoot & Thompson.

The agency, with more than 40 per cent of the city’s house sales market, said January’s $934,753 average sale price fell to $919,454 last month while January’s $830,000 median dropped to $820,000.

The number of Barfoot listings is up. Inventory jumped from 4320 available listings at the end of January to 4648 listings at the end of February. New listings rose from 1200 in January to 1747 last month.

Managing director Peter Thompson said sales activity had returned to the Auckland market last month but he acknowledged prices “eased back” on those being achieved for the previous three months.

“Caution as to which direction the market is likely to take eased in February. There is a growing acceptance that where prices are at present is likely to be the benchmark for the remainder of the summer/autumn sales season. Sales numbers were up, there was strong growth in new listings while prices, although softening a little on the previous three months, were stable,” he said.

“Combined with the relatively high number of properties on the market, the current stable conditions make it a good time to be looking to buy.

“Sales numbers for the month at 665 were up 12.1 per cent on those for January, and were up 19.6 per cent on those for the previous February.

“The average sales price at $919,454 was down 1.6 per cent on that for January, and down 1.1 per cent on the average price for the previous three months. A feature of February’s trading was the relatively high number of sales of properties valued at under $500,000.”

The Herald property report yesterday has agency chiefs saying the house sales market is entering a steady phase. Harcourts CEO Chris Kennedy said that in the past quarter, “We’ve started to move back towards a good, balanced market.”