The Ray White Group has seen a substantive lift in auction listings during the past quarter of 26%. In total the Group’s listings for auction increased from 460 to 607, on a back drop of overall decrease in listings coming to the market. The three major centres to show substantive increases include Auckland, Central North Island and the Lower South Island. During the past month Christchurch has also seen a substantive lift in auctions
Carey Smith, Chief Executive of Ray White New Zealand, said “Auctions are providing vendors with the ability to polarise the buyer pool into a set time frame. With the reduced amount of stock on the market, auctions are also showing an increased response rate from buyers attending open homes and also registering to bid for properties. The under hammer success rate has gone from being 58% 12 months ago to 71%. This also is an indicator of the reduced stock on the market and the confidence buyers have in purchasing by auction. There have been specific examples of peeped up buyer demand where at a recent auction held by Ray White Ponsonby price expectations were exceeded by almost 20%. This was directly attributed to the auction form of marketing.”
The total number of listings currently are at their lowest level for the past decade but the continued relevance of auction marketing now shows that one in five properties are submitted to this form of process. The Ray White Group is appointed to over 20,000 controlled listings per annum and during 2011 14% of those have been by auction and during the last quarter, this has lifted to 21%.
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