Can't watch the video on my work computer, but are we looking at the same numbers Bernard? I see approvals ticking up again through April and May. And as for early June - Queen's birthday weekend? Shorter working week, remember?

Miguel,

Yep. Realised the last number was skewed by Queens Birthday. But I'm looking back to that late March surge and the one we had just before Christmas which I reckon were factors in the relative strength in Feb/March/April/May.
We're now back around the NZ$850 million a week mark from the NZ$1 billion plus seen in those few weeks just before Christmas and at the end of March.
It certainly hasn't kicked on.

http://rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/monfin/c16/data.html

cheers
Bernard

Granted that there was a flurry of activity to take advantage of unsustainably low mortgage rates in March. That aside, to me the surges in December and March aren't compellingly different from the usual seasonal patterns.

Matt in Auck - 'Excellent' article indeed. What is her solution? Assist the corporates in taking over the farms through assisted lending and amendment of current terms.

Corporate welfare for the rich.

Let farm prices collapse. That is the way the holy markets are supposed to work. Then those who buy them may be able to make an honest buck.

Fran O'Sullivan will rail against government intervention if it is to assist any group other than the corporates.

Regarding farms - the market should be left to sort this out ie existing farmers who paid too much for their properties or did a diary conversion when the market was already oversuppllied should simply be left to fail - tough bikkie!

The quicker the banks pull the plug on these negative equity farms the better!

Then new owners can pick these properties up at realistic values so that they are actual businesses that are viable rather than the speculative property moves that farm purchases have been in the past.

It's a corporate problem and if Fonterra think these farms are worth the big bucks that were being paid for them pre 2008 then let Fonterra bail them out.

Could it be that dairy conversions will now be re-convereted to wheat - it's wheat that will be in demand in the immediate future.

TBM- Sorry- I didn't word my comment clearly enough. What I was trying to say is that is that if you went into a popular subdivision at the moment looking for a house you would find just about nothing to buy- and a house that might have been listed at $450,000 a few months ago is now listed at $495,000.

I am basing my opinion on an area I know quite well. There has been a surplus of housing in this area for a while which meant that buyers had plenty of choice and could generally find someone who had to sell and would drop their price. There is no surplus now.

There are a couple of houses around here that have been on and off the market for years and haven't sold. They are just about the only houses left for sale and one of those vendors has put their price up another $15,000 in the past few weeks. I am seeing quite a lot of agent activity around those houses now as buyers seriously consider these (overpriced) houses they probably wouldn't have looked at if they had more choice. I wouldn't call the market around here a buyers market anymore.

If I were a buyer at the moment I would probably hold out until spring in the hope there will be more listings and I would have more choice and sellers will have more competition. But if there is no great increase in listings- as I said before- there will have to be significant price rises if the market becomes a sellers market.

Here's a thought, Housebuyer.
In a stagnant market, if your house isn't selling, it may as well be 'not selling' for more rather than less.
That way, when green shoots of spring arrive, there can be all sorts of "reduced" prices for people to peruse.

Hey good comment Janet. There is a house in Christchurch that I jog past and its been on the market for around 15 months. Anyway, it sat on the market for ages at 1.1 million. Now its being marketed at 1.35 million and, guess what, its still just sitting there. I'm guessing that the strategy will be to find a buyer that might be slightly interested, then knock the price down 250K to try and convince the buyer that they have a bargain. Its a really nice, brand new house and its just sitting empty. I really do wonder when the thing will sell. The funny thing is that the house comes with a brand new 42 inch plasma tv, which is now last years model.

@ Bernard

you are can be so like a Richard Cranium sometimes. how can you invent an 'Indian Summer' for home buying to suit your outdated and dis proven point of views and think you can get away with it? best change your stance fully before you lose you audience.

additionally, how can you think for a nanosecond, that equity in anything, including housing, is not of dollar value? you claim kiwis like to spend money they don't have but like to think they have in the equity of their homes. jeepers creepers. i will give you a clue - do banks lend on equity? YES THEY DO. people are borrowing money (at a cost yes) because they have money behind them, and may not choose to sell their house to go flatting and buy a boat, when they can quite reasonably keep their home and release equity to guarantee a loan for private (or business) use.

you look exhausted, maybe it is from pushing that piece of string you call 30% drop in all property values. come on in from the cold, and rather than waiting that two years for a coffee, i will shout you one now. I know you are right about a lot of things, including how to increase traffic on web sites and how to be a media whore, but when it comes to property as a whole, your outwardly projected POV is an incorrect message, and, dare i say it, you already know the real truth, you are just being contrarily outspoken as it a great big lily pad in the marketing world. Just remember not to sit too long or it might just sink and take you with it.

Anyway, you've been great, and although from time to time i will still log in to see the changes in the wind, i have no reason to follow others opinions, as my mortgages are all in place now for some time to come. so my visitations will be less frequent.

The property market is good and stable (relatively), and although i wish at times i had sold up at the top of the most recent boom years and bought Brent Oil or similar when it was at its low, and doubled my money in a short amount of time, i continue to have piece of mind that i can physically see and feel my investments, and no dodgy fund manager, trust lawyer, finance company or similar is going to steal it away from me.

my assets ( i can call them these as they are cash flow positive) will last a long, long time - about the shelf life of solid concrete to be precise. long may the surge in house prices continue!!!

God Bless and thank you...

PS: to everyone else, you don't have to play with fire to stand close to a heater, know your limits, don't overextend, but have a punt in the game of life. The biggest risk is to have your money doing nothing, because although cash can be king in times like this, that only applies if it isn't rotting away doing nothing....

bye (and buy)....

Sure Bernards 30% drop by the end of this year may not come to pass, but lets not get carried away that all is roses and petals in the garden. If any asset appreciates beyond its fundamentals then sooner or later parity will return. If prices don't go back to within their correct pricing band (based on rents, incomes etc) in the next year or so (i.e quickly) then all that will happen is the stagnation of the market will last longer.

So we either sensibility now, or some time in the future with more damage. Either way it will happen (and yes while the house price ration may not go back to 3-1, it sure as anything should never be 7 or 8 to 1 in Auckland).

shuttle : one only has to look at Japan, circa 1989- present, to prove your point of government "aid" prolonging the suffering while wasting a lot of taxpayers' money. And do you think Obama/Bernanke&Timmy are going to get a different result for the US economy and taxpayer, from all their "aid" ?

Mostly I see greed shoots.

@Sam 11.42am - Tricky business, this buying houses, isn't it !! Caveat emptor.

President of Property,

Many thanks. I'll take the 'media whore' comment as a compliment...
I'm happy to encourage debate on my 30% fall forecast and it's not set in stone. We regularly revisit it.
You may yet get to buy me that coffee.
We'll see.
I do hope you return regularly. We hope to keep your interest. I might even change my forecast.
cheers
Bernard or should that be...Richard Cranium...

But shuttle, you miss the point when you say "History has proved that government aid only prolongs the suffering while wasting a lot of taxpayers money" The real goal of government is to stay in power and if that means setting up future generations with massive debts, who cares. By the time it hits the fan, you have enjoyed your bloated state pension, basked in your knighthood, enjoyed a stint in some fleabag foreign appointment and made sure all your flunkies are safely seated for the next round of the game.

POP well said indeed and nice to see Bernard (Richard) accepting his new title handed to him.

I am happy to wait for my Bottle of Sav till the end of the year Bernard but even this article above reeks of desperation, the "indian summer" (as you call it) is probably far from over. Prices are not shooting up by any means but they have stopped falling for the past 4 months at least possibly more. The lack of approvals probably has much to do with the lack of stock available to buy with listings down a good 30-40% here in Wellington city & Burbs. We are still over run with BUYERS and multiple offers on properties is becoming quite the norm again....go figure that old supply & demand thing working its magic.

Fear not Bernard I will continue to check in if only to see all the "Experts" who keep telling us that things MUST be one way or the other because a graph, other "expert" or spreadsheet said so... makes me laugh... it really does :)

I'll wade in on the housing price trends. I've said on these threads before & I'll keep saying, I think a 30% drop will be the go, quite possibly more. I have been predicting this for 3-4 years, & I'll stick to my prediction. I'm not simply going along with Bernard, my thoughts are based on independent observation of cost-to-rent ratios, income-to-cost ratio, etc.

I never did agree with Bernard on the "end of 2009" scenario, housing movements are usually sluggish, I always felt that late 2010 would be getting towards the nadir, however of course the time frame is dependant on all sorts of things. The only proviso I make is inflation - if it took off, prices could stay constant in nominal terms while dropping in inflation-adjusted term - thus giving the appearance of price stability as occurred in the late 1970s.

I don't really worry too much about taking flak from Pres of Property, Glen Stewart, Bank Mgr, etc. I'm happy to be in the ridiculed minority, I was in mid-1987 when I sold my shares & several other times, & have learned not to take too much attention to those who have blind faith and certainty on their side!

I think the Indian Summer of the housing market might be coming to a crashing halt round about now.

@ Philly

i care not about you therefore am not about to criticize you. you fly way under the radar of causing harm as you have no known authority to all the lemmings that unfortunately for them actually do get sucked into following Bernard's advice. people are probably not interested in you either given your exaggerated doomsdayer approach - i think these days you will find people are a bit more wide eyed, unless some self proclaimed expert distracts them with fear from the various media outlets available.

Whop a tail on me and call me a lemming, POP!
It's part of the process of their survival. There has to be death, for there to be life.
Time for a bit of scorched earth theory to get the real green shoots going, I reckon....

PS: Philly. I recall some dude built himself a big boat a few years back; said there was going to be a bit of rain, and there was lots of laughter. He stuck to his belief, though, and there was a might less competition for the land when the sun came out.....

@Pres of Prop: I'm happy to keep sticking my hand up when it looks as tho prices have levelled off, & keep to my prediction & get heaps from the likes of you.

Promise me that if prices resume their slide you won't quietly disappear off the radar to avoid the music! Come on now, fair do's!!

PS, I love the "wide eyed". Brilliant!!

... most wide eyed people have people in white coats in close attendance.....

The property market is a bizarre one alright. I've always thought that prices would come back at least 30% from their high in November 07 by November 09. I also thought that in 2010 things would start to flatten out and stay pretty stagnant for some years.

Doesn't seem to be panning out that way though. As I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, I've just bought a house - albeit out of necessity, not in the belief that it's necessarily a good investment - and was astonished at the level of activity out there. I was just plain lucky to get a nice house and simultaneously get a bargain - right place at the right time. Literally had I been a day later with my (fair but low) offer and I would have lost the place to multiple cash buyers frothing at the mouth.

I was also surprised at the absolute crap on the market - most decent houses are just being sat on by their owners. Anything nice just seems to be snapped up immediately, and there seem to be multiple people bidding for them.

To put it bluntly, people selling crap houses need to wake up and smell the coffee - despite plenty of people wanting to buy and limited numbers of properties available, these huge old whales are just sitting there on TradeMe with not a flicker of interest, literally rotting off their piles.

Seriously people, if you're selling an old heap with a corrugated tin roof, single glazed wooden framed windows, no insulation, clean heating or DVS, flaking paint, ANY evidence of rot/rust/damp and the shell of a Subaru Legacy Wagon on the front lawn, you're selling a garden shed. It's a health hazard not fit for human inhabitance and you need to understand that the person moving in will need to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (that nobody will lend them) and several years of their life to sort it out. This is not an investment opportunity, this is a pain in the arse, a drain on cash flow and a waste of peoples time. It needs to be cheap, understand? Very cheap. Especially if you've sub-divided it and are now living in a freshly constructed palace on what used to be the back garden. And even more especially if you've not bothered sub-dividing it properly and it's cross-leased. There's a technical term for this kind of thing, it's called "being a greedy t**t". We live in NZ for gods sake, not Manchester. 4 million people on all this land. Why are we all living in each other's back gardens and picking over the rotting remains of these so-called "houses" wondering whether we can afford them or not?

Perhaps a (much needed) crash in the price of all these "old munters" will push us towards that 30% average number and win Bernard his victory Soy Latte?

Philly - I think everyone pessimist or optimist would be surpised at the way things have panned out - I too am surprised at the supposed recovery and there could in fact be another downward leg especially when you consider the rapid escalation of interest rates.

@ Philly

Reassure you that you are right or wrong? hmmmm, given the scope of your question I shall say you're right on the button.... ;-)

Perhaps Philly's analogy and my extension explain the phrase "The back-side has fallen out of the Property Market, here come the vultures"?

I guess it depend who's doing the selling, MS? If it's multiple property owners, maybe they're leaving the loop and putting their funds to alternative use. That just takes those spring buyers out of the game now. As you indicate, time will tell.

@ Wally,

right in so many ways.

Look at prices for other property such as farms, and commerical. Both are down substanially and while the basis for their valuation is different to residential property it's not a trend anyone can ignore.

Especially as each is in theory a better asset class with some underlying actual fundamentals.