House prices hit all time highs in its northern region (Auckland and Northland) and Christchurch last month, according to New Zealand's largest real estate agency.
Harcourts said the average price of homes it sold in the northern region in June was $720,815, compared with the previous record high of $697,454 set in May, while the average price of homes it sold in Christchurch was $529,097, setting new price records in both cities. Harcourts didn't supply median prices.
And Auckland prices may have some way to go yet.
Harcourts chief executive Hayden Duncan said there was still strong upward pressure on prices in Auckland.
However the number of sales was down to its lowest level in nearly two years, with Harcourts handling 460 sales in the northern region in June.
New listings are also scarce on the ground in the northern region, with the company listing 432 properties for sale in June, down 25% on last year.
However stock on hand, the number of homes the company had available for sale in its northern region, was up 23% compared with May to 1725 homes, but that was down from 1865 dwellings in June last year.
In Christchurch, where Harcourts is by far the largest real estate company, it had a massive 27.6% jump in new listings and stock on hand (up 30.1%) compared to the same month last year.
"The is largely due to the increasing number of new builds coming on to the market," the company said.
"The loan-to-valuation-ratio restrictions and rising interest rates have seen a drop in the number of buyers [in Christchurch] and this has shifted power in favour of those looking to purchase.
"However the average sales price is at an all time high of $529,097.
"While it might seem that prices should be dropping with an increased level of stock and less buyers, this is not the case as many of the new builds have a fixed cost per square metre that must be met.
"For buyers looking to enter the [Christchurch] market, now is a good time to do so with more stock to choose from," the company said.
67 Comments
The RBNZ has put New Zealanders on the wrong side of the interest rate apartheid wall. A expat German friend of mine spoke to her bank manager in Germany last week. They were happy to lend her money for a house in NZ provided she had some collateral in Germany. Rates were around 3.5 % for 15 years. New Zealanders (non asset owning) are getting screwed by rent seeking foreign capital.
The definition of "rent seeking" is to charge money for something that is usually for free. Did not know New Zealand landlords (unlike evil German ones) did not charge their tennants anything. One always learns new things at Interest.
3.5% for 15 years is good, but does not protect from currency exchange risks. The EUR is at an all time low to the NZD. If it rises, then the NZD rent may not be enough to cover the EUR mortgage. Also transaction costs are high with banks ripping off customers on overseas transfers.
Dont froget, foreign currency loans have driven many a punter into bankruptcy over the last decades.
However, the German woman's bet may work out, as the EUR is slowly being turned into a Franco-Italian zombie currency, so the EUR-denominated loan may actually reduce in value relative to NZD. Still a significant risk, depending on the size of her exposure. Good luck to her.
"The definition of "rent seeking" is to charge money for something that is usually for free"
Back when I used to work in marketing, we called that "value add". How to take a service or product, preferably one we were providing anyone and attach a value and use that as a promotional angle to increase the revenue stream (-never- as just a product differentiation, it had to be increase of revenue stream.) The modern term is "monetisation" (although the difference is subtle).
It could be things like offering priority services to some clients to guarantee fast response, insurance (especially for things we were law bound to replace, but we could offer insurance (and pass on the risk & therefore cost to professional insurers) that said we'd use new or upgraded items - this mean customer paid us more, some went to insurer, and if there was a failure which would have been at our cost, the insurers paid - so instead of refurbished our cost units, we got free upgrades to our infrastructure instead. and the customer paid extra for the service).
extended warranties is another
I believe my interpretation of rent-seeking is correct. I never said that German, Saudi, Chinese, Russian capital is evil. Private individuals, oligarchs, and fund managers etc are just protecting their wealth. What I do have a problem with is the fact that more than half of all NZ now rents, and our government pays vast sums to landlords in the form of the accommodation supplement. The influx of all that foreign capital to the housing market is only beneficial to a select few, while making the rest considerably worse off.
it might be "correct" as in matching up with written in the books and tossed about by employee-types who don't know any better. But that is much of the reason such misonformation persists.
You think you get shelter for free? (rental accomodation)
You think a safe secure prominance for business or industry is free? (indust/commerc rents)
You think all that equipment at the hire centers turns up and can be used free? (rental centers)
You think the distribution and copyrights for videos and media is free? (rental video/dvd)
You think that a hotel or motel comes free or general lets people shelter free? (rent by the hour)
If you see "rent-seeking" in the context you are applying it, which as you say isn't uncommon, then you know the speaker isn't the whole quid with the economic or financial cycle, and their line of thinking therefore going to be equally unwell.
Rent-seeking is when you have a cost-of-ownership (normally for an asset, but it can be anything you own) and the person managing the ownership rights seeks to monetise/add-value/gain revenue _without_losing_permanent_ownership_. It's that non-consumption which is the definitive part of rent-seeking (ie become a rentier). It has nothing to do with "Free", in fact it's usually the opposite of free! A pimp knows he's got to pay/feed/catch his girls, so he's got to rent something of value to get his income....ain't nothing _free_ about it.
Nice straw man argument cowboy. "Stuff doesnt come for free, therefore rent seeking foreign capital must be good!" Ummm okay? When I say rent-seeking I mean purchasing property to increasing one's share of wealth without actually creating any real wealth. Parking money in housing and collecting government subsidized rent while claiming all sorts of costs to minimize tax.
Its been a golden run for landlords during the last two decades, and it could happily continue, but the rampant foreign investment aspect threatens to destabilize it all. What's transpiring is socially and politically unacceptable. Don't shoot the messenger.
applying for accomodation suppliment is compulsory. removing ther suppliment won't bring down the price of houses, and places where the rents are lower generally are that way because of poor economic factors. Poor economic factors are highly connected to low employment opportunity and wages.
Remove the suppliment and people end up moving to "trailer parks" and ghettos and their job prospects vanish, as do there hopes (and morals)
The big-bang "sleeper" in your comment is, how much taxpayer funded rental supplement is flowing out, overseas, on an annual basis?
Just another point in the debate about the lack of data available to the hoi-poloi
If the lever-pullers dont know, nothing needs to be done. No problem.
Fat pat, understand the foreign exchange risk though, she may well be taking plenty if she doesn't plan to live here permanently - many make this statement without any realisation of this..NZers fell into the same trap in the 80's, seemingly cheap money which proved to be horrendously expensive money when ultimately converted back to the home currency. Why is she buying in NZ, migrating, investment ?
Just wait until Wheeler gets the NZ dollar to fall.
Prices of houses will rise all the faster.
Overseas investors will rush in with their higher valued currencies and imports such as oil, plastic etc will feed straight into building costs.
If you think house prices are too high now, stand back, the show hasn't even started yet.
Right, now where would you like your quarter acre sourced from
One-Fifth of China’s arable Is Polluted
EDWARD WONG APRIL 17, 2014 - BEIJING
The Chinese government released a report on Thursday that said one-fifth of its arable land was polluted, a finding certain to raise questions about the toxic results of China’s rapid industrialization, its lack of regulations over commercial interests and the consequences for the national food chain
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/world/asia/one-fifth-of-chinas-farmla…
You might wonder why china is aggressively sourcing it's food supply from other places and buying up farmland in Africa, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
The subtext being - the polluters having polluted their own back-yard are now moving to pollute someone elses backyard - anywhere, preferably somewhere with a 100% pure reputation
Property prices are ultimately determined by the income potential (as in non-resdidential now). The interest rate determines the price a buyer is prepared to pay for the yield they want.
If the NZD falls there is enough soft investment to cause the prices of residential to fall as they quit the market, be it local or overseas sourced. Add to that the underlying land value is totally flexible and site value for new building is subject to supply.
The only thing that differentiates property from other investments is the stickiness and liquidity but time can make the difference and move the market up or down.
So what happens if overseas investment is banned and more importantly if existing owners are forced to pick between liquidating and becoming residents (if they qualify)?
So it all depends on what stars are in the show as to the outcome.
the major flaw in saying Germany offers 3.5% (why not go to Japan and get 0.5%) is that for a $500k NZD mortgage will cost you 322k Euro so when you go to pay back that principal the value of your NZ mortgage could be 580k NZD hence a real interest rate of 10%+ if it were that easy wouldn't everybody be doing it unless you are saying this is an NZD loan and if so can you send me their bank details please?
In some ways it doesn't really matter what the exchange rate does, particularly if you're in Germany earning Euros. You'd probably split the loans between countries to make the cost of borrowing neutral in NZ. At the end of 15 years you've got a free hold house in a top Auckland suburb etc.
Bear in mind that what Auckland is to NZ, Munich is to Germany, the most desirable place to live. Also note that small apartments in Munich are at least 350 to 500 thousand Euros. So much cheaper assets in NZ. Kiwis just can't compete with that. It shouldn't be that way! Before the Greenspan trashed the dollar in 2002 you baby boomers out there had the benefit of buying in good suburbs at reasonable prices. It's just not fair, there's no opportunity these days unless you inherit wealth. There should be some sort of hefty stamp duty for foreigners. Something.. anything! but the property free for all that exists today.
New Zealand houses are the world's most overpriced according to OECD, IMF etc. Not really a bargain at all. If "the German woman" had bought in 2009, when EUR was 2.55 NZD and prices in AKL were 20 to 30% cheaper than now, she would be a lot better off than now.
And Munich is not Germany. For 500K NZD you can buy a modern penthouse or stately villa in 90% of Germany. And I mean house, like with concrete floors, 40cm brick walls, triple glazing, central heating. Not an AKL wood shed.
It is actually amazing that NZ houses go so well, despite their being totally overpriced and of very minor quality. I wonder what would happen, if they fell back to their real price, like half of what it is now or even less. You may be able to get a cheap house, but not be able to pay for it anyways because the economy has gone belly up and you dont have a job.
Yes I'd agree. 500K NZD can get you a humdinger of a house in Tauranaga, Gisborne or other parts of NZ too, but those provinces aren't where the "high income potential" wants to live. Regarding overvaluation, I remember talking to my grandmother about the great depression. My grandmother's uncle inherited a house on Khyber Pass Road, but he couldn't afford to pay the rates and was forced to sell. It was a free hold house! just think about that. As annoyed as I am with the governments lack of regulation, I believe the tide will go out on the Auckland housing market at some point. There will be distressed selling and Hyman Minsky's prophecy will come to pass.
There's not a huge exchange risk on monthly repayments.
the exchange risk only occurs when you _must_ transfer cash.
If rates are unfavourable then bank the NZD in NZ based 90 day term, pay with Euro borrowed at cheap German rates.
When the exchange rate is in your favour pay your german loan with high value NZD, which only needs to cover 3.5% interest (which you'll be recovering with your NZD term deposit 4% carry).
Basically just a solo version of playing swaps, ratchet into the direction you want.
The only way to lose is being forced to transfer when you don't want to, but that's no different from any other investment risk.
"Harcourts didn't supply median prices." Why not?
A 10 year old child can calculate medians yet it's too complicated for Harcourts.... yeah right.
If prices are higher then why are Harcourts hiding the median.
Big Daddy i agree our dollar will likely fall as it usually follows our commodity prices which have been dropping. And i agree imports will cost more as a result - significantly oil. However where i disagree with you is i believe when these additional costs are compounded with higher interest rates, people will have less money to service a mortgage, hence they can borrow less, and as a result this will put further downward pressure on house prices. Not the opposite.
I'm not so sure overseas investors will be running to purchase NZ property in a falling market. And I also have no idea what our future immigration policy will be and how easy it will be for these overseas investors to get their dollars into NZ.
You are so right Triple
This average price rubbish that the Real-estate companies keep talking smells of the same BS that finance company’s where talking 5 sort years ago. How many billion of dollars went up in smoke then????????
SALES DOWN THAT’S A MAJOR UNDER STATEMENT
Follow 100 auctions in the last 3 weeks looks like they are running at about 30% selling under hammer on the day (North Shore). Have not seen so many house passed in and priced on shore for 5 years.
Example
Forrest Hill one of hottest markets on shore.
18 Priced 7 Auctions
Wow what a turn around.
It just keeps getting better and better for buyers. Don’t worry about Auction any more wait for them to pass in and negotiate a fare price.
Much as you would like to predict gloom and doom, Barfoots monthly and annual sales
tell us that turn over and prices are still very firm.
All those who oppose the numbers, look upon them and despair.
June 2014 1037 properties $740,474,361
June 2013 1059 properties $688,292,567
12 months to June 2014 12,640 properties $8,574,015,963
12 months to June 2013 12,655 properties $7,874,851,014
Averages:
June 2013 $649,000
June 2014 $714,000
BigDaddy
Lets not look back let work in current market.Tony Alexander in property press today say 8.4% down.(Good read Northshore Property press today)
June sales numbers down.Forget dollar value that will be going up for the next 100 years as it have for the last 100.
At the cold face last 3 weeks property not selling at Auction stock building up nicely.Heap of new build coming to market not selling way over priced need to be to get a return for developer.Developer start burning up in next 6 month both Auckland and Christchurch.
Lets just see what happen in the next 2 months
Nice come back BigDaddy.
However I notice the numbers you are quoting are annual numbers. None of us would disagree that the market has observed significant gains over the last 12 months. Although I believe we are referring to what is occurring in the market now - as in the last few months. The reality is B&T median sales price for June 2014 dropped 2.9% from May 2014. That's a drop, not a gain.
Also in another forum today you made a post supporting seven reasons why the property market "may get the speed wobbles this year". You're covering all the bases aren't you :-)
Of course it is still going up like a rocket!! I witnessed this very average bungalow on small section passed in at $1.75mil only 3 days ago. Greedy vendor wanted over $2mil for a small house.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=738544718
Winter and especially Politics make bad bed-fellows hence the speed wobbles that Olly predicted on his excellent website "www.ollynewland.co.nz".
Trends are all that matters-not month to month.
Statistics are typically saw toothed.
The trend is up in the main centres and down in the provinces generally speaking.
Wait until after the elections - Labour /Greens crushed, and better weather.
It will truly be a summer of content.
... don't be in a hurry to write off the Green-Labour coalition .... the basis of MMP's design is to hamstring the vote of centre-right parties ... which is why the socialists love it so much , under MMP they get far better bang for their voters' buck than the right does ...
If we still operated the old FPP system Labour would have been annihilated in the 2008 & 2011 elections ....
... pity the stoopid Royal Commission didn't point us to the STV system , and not to the idiotic MMP we chose , based on their recommendation .. .. so much for the " experts " ...
No.
FPP is descended from Medieval systems were only the land owning gentry counted. this is reflected in it's fundamental DNA. I want a modern system where people's votes actually count.
And if some one the right are bemoaning the effect on the centre right compared to an imaginary present under FPP, just let the last referendum results stand- the people have spoken. And you may have forgotten, but National did actually win the last two elections. Indeed, with Epsom, and Oharia/ Belmont, and probably East Coast Bay's to come, National have been far better at exploiting the margins of MMP than labour. If any party has been the natural party of MMP in the past few elections, it has been National.
I want a system where the people who pay for stuff get to vote, or at least veto, on how it is spent.
A mob based system is easy enough to run, but too easy for the "can't be bothered (or unweilling to sacrifice) to be responsible for their own economical needs" to demand others pay for them wants.
And where we can say secret agreements like TPP don't apply to us, as we're not party to the details.
I'm somewhat against people with the money having a veto over the government (and presumably the more money, the more power of veto). Not only does it feel like a return to "Thankye yer lordship" but there is also plenty of historical evidence that if a few wealthy people get their hands on the levers of power, they have a tendency to use that power to advance their own interests at the expense of the other 99.9% of the population.
Regarding secret deals like the TPP, because I don't see a lot of difference between the main parties on economic issues, I am seriously contemplating basing my vote around which party will do the most for open government.
not so much over the government, but over the spending.
It was beautifully illustrated by Disney in Lion King, Scar's promise "You will never go hungry again". Yet all the supporters voted in an unsustainable system that initially meet their wants, but destroyed the supporting system. Business and wealth act the way they do, because that preserves wealth, having the ruling class declare that they or their policies are beyond such demands results in detriment to that wealth generation.
So instead of a pro-country system of governance we've ended up with a pro-business (chasing funding eg US) or pro-mob (our rapidly declining socialist state). at the end of the day, if you're not putting in the hours and replenishing what you use, you're stealing.
I absolutely agree that funding operating out of your capital base/ running things not sustainably is bad, but would cavaet that with The Lion King was not a democracy [the "King" bit :)]
Drawing from recent real world news, it does seem that the Winter Olympics are never going to take place in a Democracy again, as any country where the wider citizens (not just the rich elite) have a say has looked at the costs and gone No Way.
http://deadspin.com/nobody-wants-to-host-the-2022-olympics-1582151092
All in all, while there is a danger of the tyrany of the majority, I think the modern evidence is that the more representative the democracy (and the better informed the population), the less rentier pork-barrel politics feather-nesting goes on.
Don't be thrown by the semantics. The popular ruler got "voted out" (in this case tossed off a cliff). the opposition party got in with support from a select and active power group (a bunch of hyena's). They put in policy that was popular with the power group that didn't take into account with underlying structure of their resources (circle of life).
Another example would be. All of my family except myself have travelled overseas. That's parents, siblings, ex-partner, my children.
My parents could go because I managed the farm and made sure things ran properly. My siblings went because of work and partners (one is a doctor, the other took an advance of his inheritance). My ex and kids could go because I footed the bill.
Now if we took a democratic stance then things like budgetting, safety, economics, biology would all be "useless topics" to them. someone else will pay, or will catch all the problems (either me or my father). However _important_ topics are compulsory life savings in foreign currency, travel seminars, compulsory travel insurance, foreign language lessons.
This makes sense to my family as the latter are things "everybody" uses, and is in their culture a universal need. ...To me, the guy who keeps it all together, and who pays for much of it, those things are just a complete obstacle that obscure the real important things - to them, my needs and priorities are completely foreign. I'm not exciting, I'm not knowledgable, nor have I "been places"; I'm just the stay at home who can't get his life together and needs to "lighten up and have fun".
Now what needs -should- we be voting for in my little democracy?
I think the ruler in the Lion King no more got voted out than King Alexander I of Serbia in 1903.
I want it on record I think history is a better guide to the ability of informed democracies to constrain elites directing resources to themselves than a Disney movie the film makers have said was inspired by Hamlet. Also, families are not democracies (but can be partnerships).
But I get the impression we both at least agree that whoever is in government, we want the right to know what they are up to.
and rather timely, just out today is a Ted talk from George Takei on American Democracy
http://www.ted.com/talks/george_takei_why_i_love_a_country_that_once_be…
Noam Chomsky. Control what is permissable to say, control what can be thought.
unless the citizens want to risk defying the hand that gives them back scraps, they have to be willing to think beyond the box. This is frequently unpopular, unpleasant and often dangerous.
a group of motivated voters took power.
the others could have overthrown them, but the law was followed following an unexpected vacancy in the office.
Some families are democracies. Seldom are they multi-lateral partnerships.
I am NZ citizen by the same right that I am a member of my family: that was where I was born. I did not choose it. My ex-partner did "immigrate" and then chose to re-patriate (emigrate). My children, like my self, were forced to membership.
Like the democracy, they will eventually hold more influence than me in the decisions.
At the moment if I play the tyrant, then I will meet an uprising. I must sooth my voters, and if I make unpopular policies like move to a dairy farm, then they will remove their support.
you say motivated [cartoon] voters, I say regicide with foreign [cartoon] mercenaries.
I am reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail-
King Arthur: I am your king. Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you. King Arthur: You don't vote for kings. Woman: Well how'd you become king then?why the need to go full retard.
the point was about the new regime not understanding how the wealth structure actually worked. That what they saw as oppression and them not receiving their entitlement from others, was because of their sense of false entitlement. That the only reason the system worked is that the parasitic natured of the entitled wasn't allowed to overwhelm the production of those who produced the wealth.
the new regime implimented levels of entitlement and luxury for those who didn't produce, but the cost was more than the third estate could provide. In response those who felt entitled (for whatever reason), demanded more (for whatever reason, it doesn't matter why). Opposition was repressed and criminalised.
your point of whether it wasn't a democracy, if anything, highlights the imbecility of the general public to the real dangers (the threat by the entitled to the real production process) ... that is for successful business and trade, cost overheads must be kept low. service providers, and the entitled, are costs, not production.
while there is an element of tired, the responsibility is something that I kind of have to accept.
Some say "why do it if it doesn't make you happy"... to them I say "duty"
What the difficulty is; is that if they all vote "that we need to jump off the financial cliff", I'd like to exercise my natural given right to say "no thank you", without being shackled in legal leg-irons and thrown off first.
Last para, and dont we have that with Peak oil and AGW for instance? how many libertarian / far right wingers deny it? Even Congress? well paid by the coal and oil industry.
Or the financial mess we are in? Everyone wants to keep the game going. No one wants the pain of adjusting and just listen to them claim "no one told us" when the inevitable happens.
The pollies know about all three and yet do little or nothing or even want to make things worse. In fact dont even mention the first...
Can kicking par excelance.
regards
AGW, yes.
Peak Oil not so much, as the existing concentrations of power are connected with developing alternatives (so making Oil technology obselete, reducing demand pushing Oil into declining phase) and pump&dump existing technology to try and wring out the last bit of oil and profit (so making Oil too expensive for common use, and pricing it into the decling phase).
I don't think they deny as such... but a lot like those who feel entitled by social demand... they don't want to know and it's unpopular to know - thus it is more profitable shortterm just to ignore it and deride it. Actually going to the effort of deniable implies enough knowledge and skill in the first place.
As for the financial mess. That's why I'm poking about with cryto-currency. If they open the jack-in-the-box on that one then the renaissance run on the gold vaults will seem like a toddlers birthday party in comparison. When you crack the box, it's more like a Mad Max film than decent governance.
Hence the need to unwind things very slowly and carefully. And many unpopular steps, and ones which fly in the face of vested foreign interests (who seem far more persuasive than their public documentation supports), are going to be impossible to get through in a self-serving mob-rule.
it stops working when the non-productive sector size increases so that there demands (and votes) overtake the productive, and that there's enough generational gap that the non-productives don't care about their support network (goevrnment is there to see to peoples' needs, money comes from ATM's)
BigDaddy, trends can be defined as a "general direction in which something is developing or changing".
May 2014 REINZ housing price index for Auckland showed:
12 months + 9.4%,
3 months - 0.8%,
1 month - 3.1%
There is a trend developing alright but it's not positive.
Build costs have a great deal to do with all this.
Earlier today: went to see 'The Cantabrian' - a 115 squares, simple design house. Very nice, good layout, clever rearrangements possible in internal rooms. Designed via a competition, sponsored by our very own State Bad Bank: Southern Response, as a multi-proof design that just needs a foundation to be locally engineered and consented.
Guess what the price per square is...$2,600 with all if basic fittings (configuration was 3 beds 1.5 baths)
Plus found - allow $15-40K depending on local requirements.
Plus section - allow $200-240K
Plus find a builder who will fixed-price the deal at that rate per square.
So, adding all this up, the total price (for, let us not forgot, 115 whole squares) is - um - takes off socks, doubles compute capacity - allow $35K for found, $220K for section, total of $549,000. From the article above, median Christchurch house price is $529K.
Sigh....
No, I think many of us point out that a fall is going to happen. Certainly for myself I odnt wish it as a short term event....longer terms maybe its a good piece of education for certain.....ppl who think they cant lose $s in housing.
Not so sure on the building industry being toast in the context you mean, though I suspect many of the suppliers who have a lot of debt will go out of business.
regards
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