Can you afford a home in NZ?

[Grrrrrrr!]

Downside of commercial real estate is that there is a much larger chance of having it empty for 6 months than with residential.

[duddley]

You can make decent returns on shares. My kiwisaver portfolio has been doing about 10-20% a year for the last 5 years. some of the units u bought during the height of the recession for 60 cents each are now worth $1.10,I knew I should have put some voluntary payments in then.

[Lloyd]

Curiosity... how do you manage your kiwisaver?

[Al]

The only way to manage Kiwisaver is to have knowledge of where your money is being invested by the fund manager and move the funds from scheme to scheme, or even to a new provider after due diligence.

[duddley]

Basicly if I thought we were about to hit another reccesion I would switch my money out to a cash deposit scheme returning bugger all and then switch back to a share based scheme when I thought the market was starting to recover

[Grrrrrrr!]

So, according to some economists, Auckland house prices aren't due to a shortage, merely people that think the house prices are going to keep rising like they have been forever and ever and ever..

http://www.interest.co.nz/property/6529 ... reason-soa

What does toyspeed think of that.

<yep, bored at work again>

[BZG Wagon]

I think that's the Auckland market in a nut shell, skewed by significant tax advantages and leveraging opportunities.

Before we moved to Sydney a rental viewing was held for the place we rented in Te Atatu Peninsula - currently one of the big property hot spots (with houses selling in under a week).

The place we rented was a 1990's brick and tile place, fully insulated, fully fenced, internal access garage, quiet cul-de-sac with good neighbours on a low maintenance 480sqm section. Very rare for the peninsula.

I figured the viewing would go crazy given the housing market, but the agent said only three people showed up and only one applied - a single mother with two kids. We were there for six years, paid $420p/w in rent (which I thought was very reasonable) and the new tenant was only paying $430p/w.

This experience backs on what Dom Stephens is saying.

[BZG Wagon]

...on a side note Dom is always very pessimistic on the property market. His colleagues told me he's been looking for a house for some time and holding out for a drop in prices (not sure if he bought yet - this was 9 months back).

So like all housing commentators there's probably bias in there.

Not sure if he's bought or not; but I've never rated his forecasts that highly. A few economists I've met have made similar comments to me.

[rollaholic]

thats all very well, but if everyone is buying / not selling because they expect capital gains, no-one is going to sell for less than they paid +10% or whatever unless they are forced to.

this may / will happen to some extent to people who have over extended, but i will be extremely surprised if there is a serious wholesale fall in house prices in auckland unless the whole world goes seriously tits up.

its a bit like regular money, its not actually valuable - just bits of paper, or even just information in a computer. its valuable because everyone believes it is... just like most kiwis believe houses are.

[matt dunn]

Prices may stop rising as fast as they have been,
but cant see house prices ever going backwards by much in general.

And that would be NZ wide not just Auckland.

[Bling]

I saw that the house prices have only now just passed the 2007 peak $$$ wise. I'm pretty sure interest rates were a shit load higher in 2007 than they are today. I don't keep an eye on the Auckland market on it's own though, so it could be a different story. I think the low rates are certainly fueling the prices in at least a small way. I recall having 9% interest rates around the 2007-9 area. (memory isn't that good).

OCR rates over time: http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary_policy/ocr/

Agree with Matt, they may slow, but it would take something I can't think of, to make them drop by any decent amount. There are always people in mortgagee situations. In tough times that will get worse. But anyone that can afford to, will just hold tight.

Even if people are buying up more and more properties in the hope of capital gains, I can't see the number of people looking for properties to drop any time soon. So they may end up selling them, but the demand will still be there to buy them. So you won't get a drop that so many people are holding out for, and have been since the beginning of time.

Price up a new house, on a new plot of land. You'll soon see how expensive it is to build. It's a lot more affordable to buy an older house, than to build a new one. So the demand won't just dry up. You just can't get cheap land and build a cheap house.

Just my2c, i'm not claiming it's right.

[Lloyd]

http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Paci ... ce-History

[snwtoy]

Just had a valuation done (as we're adding a garage) on our house that we purchased 12 months ago in Pakuranga. Should hear the results this week, will be interesting.

[matt dunn]

Just had a valuation done (as we're adding a garage) on our house that we purchased 12 months ago in Pakuranga. Should hear the results this week, will be interesting.

I thought I had a good idea what our house was worth,
even though we have had it for 15 years,

but after going to a few house auctions in our street and see what a few others around us sold for last month,
I have just upped my estimated value by 100K.

[blindnz]

I thought I had a good idea what our house was worth,
even though we have had it for 15 years,

but after going to a few house auctions in our street and see what a few others around us sold for last month,
I have just upped my estimated value by 100K.

Must be a nice house, I thought median house price in Timaru was in the order of 250K. So an extra 100K would be a nice suprise

[matt dunn]

Must be a nice house, I thought median house price in Timaru was in the order of 250K. So an extra 100K would be a nice suprise

Thats what I though too,
but the shithole in front of us just sold for almost $300k, and is run down as hell,
and the one across the road went for $344K and I would say it is just an average house, still old fashioned inside etc.

Just means when the next round of GV's come out will will all get massive rates increases
as rates are based on house values.

[snwtoy]

Just had a valuation done (as we're adding a garage) on our house that we purchased 12 months ago in Pakuranga. Should hear the results this week, will be interesting.

I thought I had a good idea what our house was worth,
even though we have had it for 15 years,

but after going to a few house auctions in our street and see what a few others around us sold for last month,
I have just upped my estimated value by 100K.

Yeah, we get regular updates by the agent who sold us ours - house over the road with a smaller section (2/3 of ours) sold for $600, which is 70 more than we paid for ours. House around the corner backing onto an industrial area $590. Really curious, and have to say based on that our valuation could come in at over 600 including the garage, representing at least a 40k increase over the 12 months

[rollaholic]

that pressure on suburbs close to the city is spilling over into the fringe now. there was that place in royal oak or somewhere, total dive but with a bit of land that went for 700k+.

we just bought a place at auction, auctioneer said afterwards he thought it would have gone for 30 or 40k less 6 months ago.

[duddley]

that pressure on suburbs close to the city is spilling over into the fringe now. there was that place in royal oak or somewhere, total dive but with a bit of land that went for 700k+.

we just bought a place at auction, auctioneer said afterwards he thought it would have gone for 30 or 40k less 6 months ago.

Mates dad just sold an old dated 3 bedroom brick and tile place with a sleepout and single garage on 800 sqm in an average street in Te Atatu North for 705k. Prices in Auckland are just getting silly but they are still cheap compared to Bejing etc where a lot of the immigrants are coming from.

[snwtoy]

Valuation is in, purchased June 2012 for $530k, valued July 2013.....




$610k!!!!!!!!


Add a garage with small studio on the end (total 60 sq meters) and value shoots up to $650k!!!!!!!!