Mason Parker Mortgagee Marketing Specialist

5 Sherwood Place is up for Mortgagee Auction tomorrow at 12.00 noon at Harcourts Levin 12 Exeter Street, Levin.

This is a great opportunity to get your first rental property – they don’t come along at this low budget very often.

http://masonparker.co.nz/recommends/5sherwood

After 30 groups visited the properties, 50 people attended the May Auctions, including 3 registered phone bidders and a good number of conditional offers – I’m glad to say that LE10848 4 Monarch Mews Levin has Sold.

Congratulations to the new owners and the vendor!

LE10849 6 Monarch Mews is still available for a Mortgagee Sale - there’s still a great opportunity to purchase a good townhouse for Mum/Dad/Nana/Grandad to retire to.

See www.masonparker.co.nz/monarch6 for more details.

With Alistair’s access to brilliant real estate data from the Real Estate web portal www.realestate.co.nz he has recently added a good blog comment on where he sees the mortgagee trends

Well worth a read – http://www.realestate.co.nz/blog/latest-mortgagee-sales-data-shows-only-half-the-story.html 

Fundamentally Alistair’s view of the data is that national mortgagee sales are looking like plateauing – he does this by noting the trend that most mortgagee listings generally sell within a short timeframe after listing – and that he has noticed a plateauing of mortgagee listings on www.realestate.co.nz and funnily enough a reduction in the number of people searching for mortgagee sales on www.realestate.co.nz

Perhaps this means that the low levels of mortgage rates – particularly for those current borrowers on floating mortgages – are helping distressed homeowners hold onto their properties.

It seems to be showing a strong increase in mortgagee sales – no secrets there- but the regional differences are interesting.

Auckland appears to have maintained a high level of Mortgagee Sales — this would match the decrease in housing affordability in our largest city. And Wellington had the dubious honour of having the largest growth March 2008 to March 2009.

There seems to be a strong correlation that the further North you go the higher the chance of seeing mortgagee sales – not sure if this is a population based trend but I striongly suspect its a housing affordability trend as incomes nationally ae not too disimilar whereas housing prices are!

Interestingly Levin now has 6 Mortgagee Listings today on www.realestate.co.nz – see them here This is a rise – a month ago there were only four mortgagee listings.
I also ran a quick search on www.realestate.co.nz and found 344 mortgagee sales (by searching using the keyword “mortgagee” …this may include listings with mortgagee as keyword but is all I can  do)

Download the report here

Wednesday 13 May 2009 Harcourts Levin held 7 auctions including 3 mortgagee properties.

The room was chocka with people and atmosphere – 48 people present for the mystery draw – well done to the lucky winner and Mike O’Gorman successfully bid on the charity auction with proceeds going to the Harcourts Foundation for use in the Levin area.

The first auction was a mortagee property – 5 Derby St which sold under the hammer at $186,000 – a great result with multiple bids from both phone bidders and the floor. A brillaint of example of property auctions.

Two Mortgagee properties 4 and 6 Monarch Mews were next - passed in at 215,000 and 220,000 respectively – with multiple conditional offers being presented to the vendor on Friday 15 May.

A great result the traffic through all three properties was strong – with more than 30 groups through Monarch Mews its fair to say “the marketing worked to full effect and tested the market”.

Lets see how negotiations progress…

• Wayne Sutton and Stuart Pescini both called auctions and the crowd responded well to both auctioneers
• 60 people present
• Multiple phone bidders
• The rain held off
• Harcourts Levin salespeople were active in the crowd helping buyers and vendors through the process

Come along on 10 June 2009 – next months auction day – its promising to be worth attending

Crikey there are more mortgagee listings in Levin – in itself this is an alarming statement!

Lets look a bit deeper at the data (as per www.realestate.co.nz on 8 May 2009):

• The total residential listings in Levin is at a level of 423 across all residential property types
• There are 5 mortgagee listings in Levin which is about 1.2% of the Levin Market
• The mortgagee properties available consist of one 1 Bedroom property at 5 Sherwood Place (25% of the four 1 bedroom properties on the market) and  four 3 bedroom properties (4 Monarch Mews, 6 Monarch Mews, 5 Derby St and 22 Mabel St) which is 1.8% of all 3 bedroom prperties

As a Harcourts Levin Sales and Marketing Specialist its very pleasing to see Harcourts are dominating the Auction listings in Levin as they are statistically more likley to sell any Levin property right now. April had 25 Levin Residential Property Sales which was approximately 6% of all Levin Properties achieving success. Harcourts Levin auctions are converting 10-11 times more frequently.

HOT NEWS:

4 Monarch Mews www.masonparker.co.nz/monarch4 and 6 Monarch Mews www.masonparker.co.nz/monarch6 auctions are days away on 13 May 2009.

5 Sherwood Place – just listed see it here - Auction 12.00 Noon 10 June 2009 in Levin

The latest data released by Terralink shows that 124 properties recorded as repossessed mortgagee sales were registered as sold in February, down on the 150 sold in January and a significantly lower level that the 191 recorded in December.

When compared to the same period in 2008 the figures do show a significant increase – just 46 sales in February 2008. On an annualised basis the past 12 months has seen an almost trebling of sales with 1,463 sales up from just 533 in the 12 months to February 2008.

READ MORE AND VIEW THE GRAPHS HERE

As a Harcourts Levin Sales and Marketing Specialist I have seen 4 recent mortgagee listings in Levin and saw 7 Mortgagee auctions in our office…watch this space I feel this may be a data blip my technical phrase for a statistic thta is outside what I see as an emerging trend.

Research is showing that 95 % of all property purchasers are utilising the internet and according to a major independent Real Estate website the number one phrase used in searching for property is the word “mortgagee.” However we have made it easy for you as our latest mortgagee sales are found here

Last month I mentioned that buyers are re entering the market place.  It is interesting looking at the national statistics which show 3706 sales in January (must be the lowest on record) then 5208 in February and now 6694 in March. About 1000 more than March last year.

Investor buyers and entry level buyers have re-entered the market on mass where there is real value for money.  Therefore, if you see something on the list that appeals do not wait to see what happens as the environment has changed over the past six months.

New to the market is an estate sale in popular Sunset Terrace at Waikanae Beach. Great buying in this location and a mortgagee sale in Levin at 5 Derby Street and an estate sale at 103 B Winchester Street. Contact Mason Parker Harcourts Levin Sales and Marketing Specialist on 06 368 9449 if you’d like to view these properties.

In Gracefield, Lower Hutt we have a one bedroom ground floor attached unit situated at 121 C Bell Road – this could be the cheapest property you buy for a while.

REMEMBER; if you have any questions don’t hesitate to call me Wayne Sutton Harcourts Auction Manager on 0274 421 915 or email wayne.sutton@harcourts.co.nz

Today  listed two properties on www.trademe.co.nz/property

Two Mortgagee Sales on 13 May 2009:

1. 4 Monarch Mews www.masonparker.co.nz/monarch4
2. 6 Monarch Mews www.masonparker.co.nz/monarch6

I am testing www.harcourts.co.nz  VS www.realestate.co.nz VS www.trademe.co.nz/property

You can see the www.trademe.co.nz listing by clicking here

I’ll be keen to get feedback whether you find the listings easier to find on www.trademe.co.nz

There has been a lot of anecdotal eveidence suggesting mortgagee as a Keyword draws more searches from buyers.

After listing 4 and 6 Monarch Mews as ligitimate Mortgagee Sales I would have to agree.

Comparing 4 Monarch Mews harcourts hits to other Harcourts listings – the traffic around the two listings at 4 and 6 Monarch Mews is significantly higher – even when compared to other auction listings.

Funnily enough though the current trends indicate that the mortgagee spike might be flattening – Alistair Helm makes a good reference here

Traffic through 4 and 6 Monarch Mews has been strong and the modest marketing package applied is certainly working to good effect with both strong web traffic and foot traffic through the Sunday 1 to 1.30 open homes.