Auction numbers still hot but 'may lose favour'

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More people may decide not to sell their properties by auction over the next couple of months as loan-to-value restrictions kick in, the Real Estate Institute says.

Wednesday, November 6th 2013, 12:00AM

by The Landlord

Data for September record numbers of properties being sold under the hammer, particularly in Auckland.

That was just before the LVR rules took hold, making it very hard for low-deposit buyers to access loan preapprovals. Without a preapproval, they cannot bid at auction.

REINZ chief executive Helen O’Sullivan said the data for October would not be available until next week but she said it might start to show a change.

“I would not be surprised, particularly at the lower price point end of the market, to see it start to change over the next month or two. But at the moment it’s too early to say.”

Peter Thompson, of real estate agency Barfoot and Thompson, said his agency had done almost 250 auctions this week alone. “We haven’t seen any fall off in the number of auctions.”

Mortgage brokers have said that people who want to sell properties to first-home buyers need to consider offering them with listed prices or by negotiation.

But Thompson said that was too narrow a view. “It’s not just first-home buyers who buy at auction, they’re only one small section of the market. This is the traditional peak selling period and I would expect the number of auctions to increase even further.”

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