Good point sj,

Just to add that real estate agents are not academics or have any relevant education and lack deductive logic ...

... just as apples here sell for X-value, apparently this has something to do with the price of butter in London!

I also visit these websites, several times a day but have no intention of buying for 6+ months.

Anyway, what is happening now is irrelevant. It's where we are going that is the potential problem!

... Real-estate company sees/thinks/hears/other ...

- {followed by anything totally ridiculous here} e.g see's person looking in agent window..

.. predicts housing market is set to recover.

LMAO !!!!!

Foreigner's dreaming about New Zealand?
USA, UK, Europe, Asia all these regions are in enormous economic and financial trouble. People feel increasingly unsafe about their jobs, about their homes and families.
Isn't that an environment, which could have a great advantage for NZ's Tourism and Real-estate business ?

Fair enough to bash the RE Agents and their statistical skills, its a fun game we all enjoy.
But the fact of the matter is that during February the market has picked up with more sales and prices holding. I know this from what I have seen out there as a potential buyer. You can talk about what is happening overseas all you like but until it happened here ... it ain't happened here.
I get the feeling that property in NZ will always be overvalued by traditional measures. For it not to be would take a remarkable, large collective shift in perception by NZers. Could it happen? Not for a while. OR only after a large economic shock - which none of us should wish for.

the words grasping at straws comes to mind

Ben says

"I get the feeling that property in NZ will always be overvalued by traditional measures. For it not to be would take a remarkable, large collective shift in perception by NZers. Could it happen? Not for a while. OR only after a large economic shock - which none of us should wish for."

what you mean like the large economic shock we are going through now?
The world is changing and we can stick our heads in the sand but it wont work, values will fall and cointue to do so as job losses mount up, banks reduce lending, our currency falls, tourism dives and investment drys up. To buy the house you need the income and while we have bluff the world for a while, the day or recokoning is upon us.

What we are looking for is to see the prices coming down on overprices houses. We compare what they were last week/month/year with what they are now.

Let the over - anxious buyers who think they are getting a bargain buy the houses launguishing for sale. The fresh stock will replenish and the "comps" will drive down asking prices.
And forget the 'By Negotiation" houses- they are a waste of time until a price gets put on them. They are to be ignored as what buyers want is a price....so we can see it drop further until we get to a point where we see value for our hard earned money.

I think the slight uplift being reported here could well be described as the "dead cat bounce" that some commentators have been watching for. Which would indicate that we're probably only half-way to the bottom of the market.

Walter K, I hear what you're saying about people coming into NZ, but personally I don't think immigration is going to save the property market. Net migration is looking like it could be negative this year, meaning that more people will leave than will arrive on our shores.

And Kiwi's coming back rich? You are talking about the very, very few - and those that do will be extremely "property market conscious" after the media reports of the last 12 months. If you're selling them a house, they'll screw you on price just like everyone else, bet on it. The glory days are over. People want cash in their pockets to pay down debt or act as a safety reserve.

But regardless, most returning Kiwi's will be coming back because things HAVEN'T worked out for them overseas, because their housing has devalued and they've lost their jobs. Remember also that it costs a fortune to relocate, so don't think we're going to be rescued by hordes of cashed-up Kiwi's throwing cash at NZ property.

It just ain't gonna happen, in my view.

Yes this could be the turnaround we have all been waiting for - why just the other day I was talking to a mate of mine, who said that their hairdresser's assistant was out for a couple of beers and overheard one of the patrons saying that their mate's brother just sold a house. Form what I understand the offer is still conditional - but still, at least there is hope :-)

Sam Smith Said

Yes this could be the turnaround we have all been waiting for - why just the other day I was talking to a mate of mine, who said that their hairdresser's assistant was out for a couple of beers and overheard one of the patrons saying that their mate's brother just sold a house. Form what I understand the offer is still conditional - but still, at least there is hope

Was that sarcastic, I wasn't sure. I have actually just sold a house privately, and it is now unconditional. I did it without an agent, and got the 2006 GV for it, which isn't bad in todays market and even better since no agents fees of 15k. I am glad to be rid of it, as I know prices are only going to drop further.
We had lots of buyers for the house, but all the offers were conditional on them selling their own house, and frankly very few houses are selling, which is causing a 'freeze' on the market.

i have logged on to property websites a lot recently because I like seeing how much prices are dropping - its entertainment, but no serious intent to purchase.

isnt harcourts one of the few that doesnt use trademe?who would know what hits they were getting.

Yes, which is surprising, as trademe is a leading way for people to find houses online. I suspect cost is the reason.

Harcourts in my area, is probably the only agency I would trust, all the others are rouges. I had an agent who was trying to pull a fast one, when I was selling privately. They contacted me, to see if I was interested in signing a contract with them. However I learnt from a friend who knew the agent, that they already had someone who was interested in buying my property, who they were selling the house of. The interested buyer I had already shown the house to previously, and they told me that they were interested in putting in an offer if they had sold their own house, who they were selling via this agent who contacted me. If I had signed a contract, I would have had to pay the agent commission, even though I had actually found the buyer myself. They are very sneaky and cunning.

deleted.

"realestate.co.nz attracted over 360,000 unique browsers"

yahoo and Google will show up as mozilla/5.0....
and they run off a whole range of ips. Google alone will hit in a 24 hr period from 5 to 10 ips each will hit 1000s of times about 20 to 30 secs apart

Now it you take just NZ ips entry page only per day per month you would get a far more accurate stat.
But even then the argument that ""a good sign the real estate market is set to improve." is total rubbish...the logic just doent wash.
There are more houses listed, for longer, therefore one could better ASS-U&ME there are more people with these houses listed just keeping up with the market.

Your post above is no more than "opening ones mouth to change feet"
Sorry..call a spade a spade.

Just to add to my previous post. You could say that people who click through to the Real Estate website from the Yahoo website, are almost tricked into visiting the 'Real Estate' website, as there is no mention on the Yahoo website, that they are going to a third parties website that is not owned by yahoo. Nor does it mention what the website is before you click the link. You couldn't say the same about trademe, as trademe owns the the whole lot, and visitors are kept within the trademe website, rather than being sent to a third parties website.

Alistair - does REINZ intend to upgrade its monthly information to the standard of the Houston Association of Realtors anytime soon? Readers may like to check this out at www.har.com - click "Find a Home" down right side "Monthly Report". I rate this the best RE websiite in the world.

What would be hugely helpful is if "Months of Supply" information could be generated each month. You bought this issue up a few years back - and I responded as well. No doubt readers have other suggestions on this issue of "information".

Readers might just notice what Houstonians are paying for houses on this website.

In my dealings with the REINZ research people over the years - I have found them to be most helpful.

Hugh Pavletich

"to the comment from Steptoe I am not sure what point you are making - if you are referring to Google bots and other spiders these are not included in these stats.

I should also point out that the stats for realestate.co.nz and for trade me come from Nielsen Online."

99% of web sites do not fully filter the break downs to talk up how 'good' their site site is ...be it to attract advertising revenue and/or stick their chest out more than it should...

Ok lets see the full stats, the country/bot/entry page hits/browser/ resolutions/OS/referals/member stats....web sites that do have genuine good results oftenh publish these direct from the host server..no need for any 3rd party to do so for them.....its like asking the guy in the service station to tell u what your petrol gauge reads.

If you want creditabilty dont just make an open ended statement....back it up

Even so "But even then the argument that ""a good sign the real estate market is set to improve." is total rubbish"¦the logic just doent wash "

Its like me saying we have doubled our hits last month...does that mean there are twice as many people around the would who now own a NZ kakariki parrot as a pet?
Or we have doubled NZ unique hits..does that mean more ppl in NZ own kakarki? hell no we are not alowed to keep them as pets and there is only a small handfull of breeders.

Interesting point steptoe. FYI our engineer did an analysis on his dedicated web server (not ours we have our own VMWare ESX virtualised solution) and found that 2GB a month of international traffic was search engine robots.

Couple of answers to questions raised.

1. I cannot speak of plans by REINZ for improvement to statistics - we are a separate commercial company

2. As to data of web statistics - the data we quote is Nielsen Online as does Trade me as does Harcourts as does Seek as does Yahoo as does TVNZ as does etc etc etc - I am not sure what value there is in providing our web logs - they would be meaningless as they are raw data.

There is two key points here - all the major websites quote Nielsen - we all trust that Nielsen do a fair and accurate job of recording and analysing the data. Secondly as all the sites report regularly statistics if there is any change in process the change effects all sites the same.

The point made in this thread was of a change - not of the absolute, I did not create this thread, Harcourts did. I do believe that trends in online traffic are an indicator of consumer sentiment and underlying activity - there is no direct correlation between website visits and property purchases but as I have commented on the Unconditional blog many times the tracking of web visits to real estate websites in 2008 was significantly curtailed when the key media coverage of bank collapse occurred.