Once again the northeast of Christchurch is benefiting from the growing demand for property in the wake of the momentum created following the opening of the new Avonside Girls’ and Shirley Boys’ shared campus earlier this year.

October’s REINZ stats highlighted a record high for the area – (Waitikiri, Tumara Park, and Parklands) at a median sale price of $490,000 – comfortably above the city median of $480,000 also a record. It’s certainly encouraging to see families moving into the area for schooling rather than the reverse as was the case for many years in the past.

Most of you should have received your new rateable value from Quotable Value late last month. If not, you can access them here. While it is known not to base market value solely on the RV, they are a useful reference point when arriving at the likely market value of a property. The components used to formulate an RV include location, land size and zoning, the age of the property along with its square meterage and construction type. Largely RVs are struck without inspecting a property, so will not reflect a property’s appeal or lack thereof. The aesthetic value, aspect and architecture are key factors, and are only measured and determined by the marketplace when a home is for sale. Like beauty it is all in the eyes of the beholder!

If you feel that your RV isn’t reflective of the current market value of the property, you can simply lodge an objection at the QV website.

Contact us today to request a no-obligation market appraisal to gauge how the market value of your property sits in relation to your new RV.

Having learnt over the years how the real estate marketplace vibe refreshes over the Christmas/New Year period, Team Griff backs the new year market as one of the premium marketing windows for sellers. It is normal for us to queue up new listings late in the year, ready to launch early in the new year, in order to ensure our clients properties are “the first cab off the rank”. This means you capture the attention of the refreshed new year purchaser, who is often frustrated by the lack of stock, while people are still holidaying or preparing their property for sale. The feed of new listings coming on the market in the new year is often slower too, equating to less competition if you are ahead of them.

Our recommendation is to talk to us sooner than later so that we can put a strategic plan in place to maximise your return.

With Griff senior moving on to a life after real estate, we recently celebrated his 30 year real estate career with clients, colleagues, family and a few friends. Mindful that the success of Team Griff over the years has largely been derived from the loyalty of our clientele, we felt it was fitting that we celebrated together.

Here’s a snippet from Griff’s speech: “Firstly, to those of you who I have had the privilege of assisting as clients. Your loyalty, trust and support has been and continues to be humbling. Without you I simply would have been unemployed – thank you!”

 Assuming the full leadership of the team, Caleb is now clearly at the helm ready for business as usual. We felt it important to make the transition as seamless as possible, so our clients have the confidence they continue to be in good hands. Equally importantly, the peace of mind that their best interests are given top priority.

Click here to view photos from our recent client appreciation evening.

Our recent sale of 80 Lamorna Road in Parklands marks Team Griff’s run of auction sales under the hammer to twelve. While careful not to toot our own horn too much, in a market where just shy of 60% of properties sell on or before auction day, we’d like to think a run of twelve in a row is kind of a big deal.

Looking back at our past campaigns, we’ve uncovered seven key factors that have contributed to our recent auction successes.

1. Our sellers have invested into the marketing of their home
For each property we list, we present a customised marketing package that we believe will attract interest from the right cohort of buyers. Our experience has taught us which forms of which media yield the best return on investment for our clients. Our marketing campaigns have a particularly strong digital focus, comprising of upgrades on Trade Me Property and Realestate.co.nz, as well as targeted social media advertising to our database of buyers we have met at other similarly priced properties. By investing into the marketing of their properties, our clients can then make their decisions confidently knowing that their property has received full exposure to the market.

2. We respond to the market
In a market that is constantly shifting, it’s important that we remain in tune with the market. If we find that we have not received the desired levels of enquiry on our property, we make a point of reviewing the messages in our marketing to ensure that we’re striking the right chord with the buying public. It may be necessary to adjust the price-point at which we’re pitching the property, or to utilise new marketing methods. We’re not ones to just sit back and hope for a better response next weekend without doing anything differently. If things aren’t going to plan, we’ll sit down with our clients and give our recommendations as to how we can best respond to the market.

3. We hold more open homes than our competition
We’re strong believers in keeping the door open when marketing property. When the vast majority of listings are open once or twice a week between the hours of 12 and 2, buyers struggle to prioritise which properties to look at. We consider three open homes a week to be the absolute minimum – and will often open properties midweek towards the end of the working day to make it easy for people who work normal business hours.

4. The grunt of the Harcourts machine
Of the 12 auctions we sold under the hammer, four of these were sold to purchasers who were introduced by other Harcourts salespeople. There’s also many more salespeople who showed buyers through our listings, and those working with underbidders. Sure, many of the smaller agencies will put their hand up to auction properties as well, but the reality is that they don’t have the network or the infrastructure to support an auction campaign. Harcourts have 450 sales consultants working across the city – and they’re all well incentivised to get buyers through your door.

5. Readily accessible property information – including a building report
One of the major bugbears for buyers in today’s market is the waiting around to receive the necessary property documentation. We believe this should be made freely available – hence we use Agentsend.com which means this info is readily accessible at the click of a button. It also acts as another lead generation tool to help us identify qualified and engaged prospective purchasers. We find that the largest obstacle for a buyer to pursue an auction property is the need to obtain a building inspection report, so we recommend our sellers provide one to make a buyer’s due diligence process as easy as possible.

6. We too feel the urgency of auction
Because auction provides a hard deadline to work towards, we as agents know that we have to do everything possible to get buyers to the auction, and then to get them bidding. Every week at Harcourts Gold, our auction campaigns are reviewed and critiqued by all salespeople in attendance, and this works really well in keeping the property at the forefront of our colleagues’ minds. We do this because we know that we have just a limited period of time before auction day to get things right.

7. We know how to work with a single bidder
It’s easy to think that you can’t have an auction with only one bidder. But the reality is that in today’s market, about 50% of sold auction properties are sold in auctions with only a single bidder. Of the 12 we sold, three were one-bidder auctions. Heading into auction day, we will have a fairly clear idea as to the number of bidders we’re likely to have participating – and if it is only one, we will simply wrap our strategy around that. This often involves sitting down with the buyer prior to the auction and take them through what is likely to happen. Conditional buyers are also encouraged to attend in the event the property does not sell, and we encourage them to take part by letting us know if they would be prepared to pay more than what is being bid – all with a view of providing our sellers with every opportunity to sell.

If you’re looking for a sales team with a proven track record of auction excellence, be sure to reach out – we’d welcome the opportunity to assist.

As the days start to lengthen, the spring buds appear and the sun shines, this is always welcome relief following the chills of winter. Personally, feeling that wee stir of excitement knowing the fishing season is on the horizon does the mind and soul good.

On the real estate front, spring is traditionally where we see the highest number of new listings coming on to the market in a concentrated time period. Being strategic with your timing is something we believe is important to manage effectively. This is where a savvy salesperson’s input will ensure your marketing plan will bring an optimum result.

It would be fair to say that stock levels were low over winter. In some locations this created genuine shortages and it wasn’t uncommon for those properties that were on the market to receive heightened enquiry given the demand.