Auction success rates were below 50% at the major Auckland auctions last week

Why buy now? People said the same thing Nov/Dec 2014 as the market gains eased with LVR restrictions. How much did people 'save' buy holding off buying then?

better time to buy than in July, indeed. But most likely worse than next year.

My crystal ball tells me that the "property madder" is not what it used to be :)

Yes I think it is very wise to 'wait and see' just how much the housing market is going to drop by. I estimate 20% for Auckland and much further everywhere else.

In case you haven't noticed the big elephant in the room that has put off foreign investors, is CGT (Capital Gains Tax), which was introduced in October at a whopping 33%!! on rental property gains, this is one of the highest rates.

If you take a look around the world; there are countries that don't charge any CGT on property sales and one of these happens to be one of your biggest property investors (i.e China or at least Hong Kong).

The IRD requirement is a small hurdle in comparison to CGT, and on its introduction; hey presto the property market has taken a downturn, suddenly switching from Auction, Auction, Auction. To priced (Thankfully - though still over inflated prices.

I'm still shocked that you didn't have the IRD requirement before or any perspective on the amount of foreign investment going on, so it's not surprising that the property market has been running out of control. At least now it is good to see the heat is being taken out of the property market here and that you've finally recognized that other parts of the world have been buying up NZ wholesale.

Otherwise you'll become tenants in your own land. :(

Two things. The gains don't need to be nearly as large to provide a very good return over time. Second, I'm not certain but a number of reasons give me a fair degree of confidence. Inflation. The fact the super fund just invested in auckland property - they are good operators. The fact the government will do anything to keep prices rises. Huge and increasing amounts of capital washing around the world looking for a safe return. Could we get a large downturn in prices? Sure it is possible, people are playing with a lot of leverage. But I highly doubt it. If prices fell 50% then investors would rush in based on the yield available vs cost of financing. It would have to be coupled with a massive increase in supply and rents falling fast, economic stagnation, increasing interest rates and no immigration. Yeah this might happen but in the history of the world the optimists have always won out. It's kind of like the guy who bought some Berkshire at 40 dollars and thought he will buy some more once the price gets back to 35. Sometime later he ended up buying more at 20000 per share. If you bought 2/3 years ago in akld you are now so far ahead that it doesn't matter if prices fall heavily - you will still have an adequate return and a place to call home. yes I'm familiar with what happened in the us, it is effectively a blip on the ocean of property price rises around the world which has been going on for decades. In fact I'm sure many investors in good locations in the us - San fran etc, have done well as prices have recovered and continued to rise.

It doesn't.

That'd be like assuming that the problem for prices to decline is a restriction in the monetary supply. As seen recently in the whole world the problem is not the amount of money but the lack of real non-debt based growth.

And let's not forget that debt can be paid ..or not.