I recently spoke with Erin Rush from Harcourts in Wellington City about her real estate business and the challenges she is facing in selling properties under the cloud of Covid.
The Wellington real estate market that Erin operates in, like most of New Zealand, has seen a significant rise in buyer interest in recent times. Wellington’s medium HomesEstimate reached $883,435 in November 2020 up 12.7% p.a.
Erin is dealing with an increase in enquiries on her listings, resulting in increased buyer competition to purchase a home. Every seller situation is different, and Covid has left homeowners in some interesting situations, and sellers are uncertain on timing with alert levels, says, Erin. “The question of when will the level rise again is on everyone’s mind. Increased buyer competition and this unknown of alert levels have contributed to an increase in the number of sellers considering auction as the method of sale for their home.
It is the stats says Erin, that proves auctions outperform other methods of sale. Since the Covid lockdown, auctions have gained interest from sellers with some outstanding results. From June – September, Erin says they had 100% of their auction listings selling, 96% under the hammer, and the remaining 4% sold post-auction.
Darryl Harper, Harcourts Wellington City Auctioneer, says auctions in the auction room have delivered exceptional sale prices with auction achieving 4% above the popular Wellington tender process and other methods of sale. “Auctions are performing exceptionally well for our sellers.”
The benefit of an auction is that you are dealing with cash-unconditional buyers on the day, wherewith other methods of sale, you are likely to have to work with conditional buyers, and if they can’t meet those conditions, then the seller is back to the market. The auction process feels secure to a seller, Erin does acknowledge that the auction method of sale is not for everyone.
Not all auction campaigns run for the full three weeks, some auctions are brought forward, and others run their course. It is the vendor’s situation that determines this, explains Erin. Adding that she has seen some auctions sell for considerably more than expected when sold prior, which does leave her wondering how much more they would sell for if the auction process had run its course?
