August certainly was a month of low volumes of sales as predicted. What is different where I live is the growing number of sales as low as $70k under cv as the vendors blink to get the sale through.Buyers are just getting harder and harder to committ and some of their offers are getting ridiculous.

The offers will continue to drop both in number and as to price. This is the new normal plod along pace of this economy. Get used to it. The pressure on prices will remain the exodus to aus, the drop off in immigration numbers, the rising cost of credit, the high real unemployment rate, the growing fiscal deficit and the march of the capital out of the country.

If China spits a dummy expect another sharp leg down for Noddyland. When the aussie property bubble implodes, that too will send shock waves across to this side of the ditch.

The promised export driven recovery with the 170ooo jobs is so much hot air. English has no option but to abandon "hope" and start swinging an axe to the state sector. We cannot take Bernanke's route to hell in QE handbasket. It is the austerity option or capitulation.

What an absolute bunch of dreamers. Inventory levels are down so there is no panic whatsoever.

The reason sales no.s are down is because of lack of first home buyers, due to the many unemployed including the ones who are on this site constantly.

Prices will hold in most major centres unless you have a property that has something detrimental to it including location, building product etc.

The property world is not ending, in fact investors are doing better than they ever have at the moment.

Hi believe the housing market will be up this time next year, with allot of people wishing they had bought in 2010. Yes you can get a bargain now. I have not seen the jump in listings that so many have predicted. I have however seen houses (at least on the north shore where I live and own property) come on and sell within a couple of weeks for around asking price (which is often been around 2008 QV.) or slightly more. It’s clear the houses that are selling are well located, pre 90's (that is 60's, 70's and 80's) weatherboard style homes on reasonable pieces of land (in good locations). House’s that have any cladding are struggling. A recent home that I was interested in sold in two weeks and had 120 people through an open home on a wet weekend..... sold close to asking (mid 800”s). Also I don’t know about the rest of the country but rents on the north shore are stable to rising...enjoy the spring all...

As a property investor - and to stimmulate our business -

I say to the immigration department, but particularly to my "Real Estate Friends" in the government - just let more people in from all over the world.

Yeah, of course we need to be more productive - manufacturing - but later.

I reiterate investors are doing better than ever at the moment as they are buying property at exceptionally good prices and great safe returns compared to any other investment.

Partly due, thankyou very much, to the many people in N.Z. with the wrong mindset including many on this site.

You are helping immensly. Keep it up.

A lot of us investors would like to sell. But with the prices being offered in this market , we would suffer huge losses. 

Dont know how long most of us can continue to hold . Too many mortgagee sales would be bad for the economy.

I wish we property investors had some sort of govt guarantee to bail us out. 

Anon @ 12.10.p.m.  The professional property investors don't need to rely on anyone for their retirement. The good ones could retire anytime. You need to be looking at your own personal circumstances and be worried I would say.

Grabbing the data for the Truncated Mean for Listings from Wellington and Auckland and comparing them with the National average, I saw an interesting difference over the last 3 years. 

http://web.me.com/john.butt/Wellington_Property/Johns_Blog/Entries/2010/9/1_Interesting_Observation.html

Wellington trend is definitely very different from that of Auckland, and not surprisingly due to the Auckland influence, different to the National trend.

Does that follow through to sales?  Yes it does seem to, as I have reported earlier from the REINZ stats, the Wellington market seems to be operating in its own space.

Re: Simpleton at 12.01: "Until recently I was one of the biggest defenders of property investment, but next week I'm about to join the ranks of the officially bankrupt, and that's all down to property".  

Actually Simpleton I'm sorry to say it was down to a ( or a set of) bad decision(s) on your part not the housing market. People made poor decisions all the time...that’s life. Sorry about your misfortune though.

There should be a serious debate about  a slimmer, leaner government an all levels, nationwide, regional and City Councils, all should cut expenses.

If I remember it right, government is costing close to 50% of GDP. This is horrendous!

The problem is, nobody  wants to abolish or cut  handouts  which would cut his/her  own entitlements. Hence the government in order to secure votes, does not dare to change the spending spree.

But there is no way around the problem of  too much tax  and too much rates, other than to reduce spending.

To begin with, do we really need so many MPs in parliament?

Do members of parliament really need travel and other perks despite their reasonable income?

How much could welfare cost be reduced in order that nobody needs to starve but also nobody gets the support because he/she could stand on their own feet and take responsibility for their own life?

How much of government services could be taken over by volunteers/community groups/charities?

How many commissions do we really need? The installment of a "commission" for any trivia is shocking and just wasteful.

Do we really need a "Supercity", nobody has done a costing and nobody can answer the question if there are savings at all. Considering the practical experience that the bigger an organization gets, the more costly and immovable and impersonal it gets. Examples all over the world aplenty.

What would we, the populace and taxpayer accept regarding "tightening the debt" in the interest of the higher good. How much longer could everybody work, assuming he/she stays healthy longer in life?

Any ideas anybody?

Anon. You are obviously hanging arround with the wrong people. With the interest rates so low still why are they needing to sell? Have they lost their jobs? I could understand it if interest rates were a lot higher but their circumstances must have changed dramatically or not owned the property for long as interest rates have been a lot higher than they currently are.

Why would you bankrupt yourself for $20K debt?

Geez only one day off talking about SCF then its back to the property porn talk ;)

Property shortage in Auckland. Prices will rise over the next 6 months.

There is a property shortage in Auckland, that is why prices are refusing to budge. It is a very different market to the regions, but i wouldnt expect a hill-billy like you to know that.

Well we know who will win the stand off, and it won't be the people saddled with debt.

Haha I'll entertain this argument, where do you get your data from?

How bout we start with the article that we are all commenting on.........."Auckland has inventory levels closer to long term average (36 weeks vs. 33 weeks), new listing numbers were trending lower than the national average and the asking price has been edging up for the past couple of months."

Who cares what the asking price is? It's the buying price that matters. A few expensive homes are selling better than all the cheap ones, but only because desperate sellers are dropping their prices. That skews the numbers. It's not that the Auckers property market is doing better than anywhere else, it's just that it has more of those expensive properties for sale.

New listings dont trend lower when a housing market is under pressure.

Come on Nony............nonny and anonononononny...... get a name and hook up where..........

we love you...................XX

 come on ya scamps...... you can rip each other to bits without the rest of us getting dizzy

trying to keep up with who's who.

unless you are arguing with yourself in which case Dr.Hyde may be a good choice for one name.

I know of an Aussie here that has been trying to sell his North Shore property in Auckland for over 2 years - at an inflated, delusional price of course. Ive tried to tell him to get real and sell at a loss now rather than go bankrupt later but he keeps telling me, “things will get better this summer & besides I have a tenant now that covers a good % of my mortgage”. That good tenant took several months to find by the way. He has been renting over here, in Oz, with his wife and kids as he can’t afford to buy in his home city. Add to that FX losses on a rapidly unwinding NZ economy and it’s a double whammy one two punch he will be facing.

Greed does weird things to what were once rational minds it seems. In the words of George Dubya “This suckers going down”.

Lid on rental  boiling pot has exploded!  The question is how far will it go, sky seems to be limit...good to see people are saving.. will come handy to top up rapidly rising rents

All my rents gone up 5-20% over last 18 mths....5% for long term valuable tenants and more for others...noone said a word...people realise low rent  times are gone for good....landlords were happy with capital gains prior to 2007, but now...party is over...

Spring sales season in AUGUST??? Yeah whatever.

I know of one property on the North Shore with a GV =$300K  but sold for $335K.  I still can't figure out why??
 

So government bonds instead of property investment?

Yes there are other types of Investments apart from property and many choose to invest in them. Had a friend about 20 years ago that was convienced Angora goats were the way to go. I told him I would invest in a property and he put the same amount into goats to see how we both faired after 10 years. I won't tell you the result as it might break your hearts!

The property is still doing OK thank you.

Wally is always agitated...you would be too if you'd had the hard life he has...quite sad really!

anyway here we have it direct to Wallyworld:

Yessirree..The wind is blowing in a different more positive direction today with a strong rebound in global equity markets. The US market has had its best day in 8 weeks rallying circa 3%. (Whilst I am reminded market rallies are always built on shaky foundations….the direction from here is still suggesting cautious range trading with buying on dips being rewarded eg BHP<$38.00 and only in key sectors and themes such as the emerging market consumer, agriculture, water, dividend stories and energy)

Short covering in banks is noticeable (as is the better bank commentary now coming from a variety of analysts). This has the potential to continue.The rally came from better US August ISM news. The July construction and the August ADP labour figures were somewhat disappointing but investors ignored them. 

The final Eurozone manufacturing PMI at 55.1 was in line with the flash estimate. Germany is now showing some moderation in momentum. France was better. The Swiss PMI was down sharply.

So there..and not a CAPLOCK in sight!

rock on elves

diversification FTW

Ex agent, your children will be broke, just like you.

I'm sensing a bit of aggression lol, PI's are getting ancy. Go buy another house and leverage yourself to the hilt. Your generation is addicted to debt, you love owing money to people, do us a favour and go borrow some more money. When will you realize that money does not equal happiness?

Smart first home buyers will hold on for the next 2-3 years and buy when properties 5-10% lower than today. 

A word of advice to Mum and Dad investors : Try and sell your residential property investments as soon as possible before you find that your equity has disappeared. Remember there is no govt guarantee . So no bail out.

Lol I love when RE agents put their ads up and say stuff like "Only for the very astute investor" etc, if an investment is any good it doesn't need to be sold to you at all, you go out and get it.

Haha, of course that one surely was only for the very very astute investor. There were some funny ones for the Zest auckland apartments, "Nest or Invest in Zest" LOL I thought that was a good one, who invests in something that needs a catchy line to sell? Ponzi PI's me thinks

Sorry Anon , I just took advantage of the market and sold a very successful agency at the top. Why work when you do not need to. You might just be suprised how many agents are currently leaving and how many agencies are closing or selling at reduced values from 2008. When I talk about advisors I am talking about my lawyer and accountant which is only normal business practice. I was not a failure and still have very good contacts in the industry who are only too happy to tell me how bad it is and how worse it is getting by the month. You sound like one of the many struggling agents who are currently wondering why the heck they are in the industry which is only going to get worse. Maybe you should be looking for a new job.

Rapidli rising  rents will bring back genuine christian values...people will be closer to each other, young people will look after their parents and youngsters will save more instead of wasting themselves in pubs...

ex agent.

There is no way in the world that you ever owned an real estate agency let alone a successful one.

You are a jhealous dreamer. What would the average lawyer and accountant know about property investment, compared to your very successful self who ran a great company?

You may have contacts in the industry who are struggling because they are known to you and follow your negativety.

I would just like to point out that we are on the verge of an historic event.

Household mortgage debt (currently $169 billion) has just had its two lowest monthly increases on record, of $112m in June and $110m in July. The record increase was $2,198m in March 2007; the increase has exceeded $1,000m on 56 separate months, most recently in March 2008. (March is generally the biggest month for this statistic.) Seems like only yesterday.

Even during the recession of the early 90s, household debt increased every month without fail.

Surely it cannot be long before we see the first actual decrease on record and Bernard will throw a big party for all his dedicated readers. The deleveraging will then have truly begun.

I will be happy when the de-leveraging happens, when as a country our government is SAVING $250 million a week, and when we don't have a trade deficit.

"when our government is saving $250m a week" - this will happen when either the economy is powering along or several big programs (WFF, childcare, health, interest free student loans) are cut. With the October tax cuts a government surplus looks unlikely for quite a few years.

"when we don't have a trade deficit" - the countries without trade deficits are all manufacturing or fossil fuel powerhouses. This would require a collapse in the dollar; a collective choice not to buy expensive crap from overseas; a collective choice to save a lot more and only invest (wisely) in New Zealand... good luck with that.

There's more chance of a small amount of deleveraging in the household sector. This would only require house prices to drift lower; interest rates to stay low; some of the tax cuts to be used to pay down debt; and sales levels to stay at historic lows, all of which are on the cards.

Still, when your debt is at 90% of GDP, even putting an extra 3% towards paying it down would take decades to have an effect and would still be a kick in the guts for the rest of the economy anyway. 

Is the car (VW) still in running order - no burst tyres, removed engine or windscreen wipers not working ? It seems the previous owner, Alan H. had some issues there.

So many people on here like to make up stories and facts to proof their points...

ahh...internet. :)

I have a hard time comprehending some of the comments on here, no wonder NZ is in such a state. People who are clearly missing some basic intelligence are those same people who are allowed to vote and who are sucked into side issues by the govt of the day. My god NZ, wake the F* up and get over your own sense of entitlement, not to mention do some reading.

The country is going doen the toilet faster than it can be propped up. House prices are going nowhere but backwards for a very long time in real terms. To think otherwise is to think that the GFC is in fact an accident or moreso is now over!!!

Yes I am a PI BTW.

Will house prices fall further here in NZ as it is happening in UK?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/7978210/Will-house-prices-fall-further.html