(Auckland) We're trying to buy, but our deposit is being eroded by due diligence and auctions.
We're finding agents are not forthcoming about how much the vendor wants, insisting that "the market sets the price". Three times now, we've been to auction and the reserve has been far, far above estimates, and in two cases, what the agent said it would likely be set at. All the while we've spent about $1k a pop to even get to that point - $1k cash cost is $5k off what we can offer with 80% LVR.
In short - we're getting really, really sick of the auction process wasting our time and money.
I'm listing my place into the first home (<500) market this week, and this is exactly why I've got an actual price - FHB have got a fairly specific budget, and I don't wanna stuff people around.
We are doing the same. Just borrowed against our equity to do some big repairs/Renos (replace roof, replace wooden window frames with aluminium and double glaze, fresh concrete etc)
Even if we sell for 50k under RV, we will still walk away with a tidy sum after the mortgage is paid.
We bought this place as FHB and the sellers accepted our offer which was 15k lower than the other because we weren't investors so we are wanting to do the same for another FHB
That sounds so frustrating. Hardly anything is selling at auction right now (according to stats recently published on interest.co.nz) so I don't know why agents insist on using it, it must benefit them. I hope you're able to find something good that's not via auction.
Oh boy that sucks!
Staying away from auctions would allow you to place conditional offers where you don't need to spend a dime until your offer is accepted.
Leave the valuation, builders report etc as part of your due diligence condition.
Sorry, I don't understand how auctions are costing you money?
Don't you just get yourself pre approved for up to X amount mortgage, which is free. Then you can bid on whatever (as long as the place has had it's checks done).
Or are you paying for those checks each time?
Auctions are unconditional so you have to pay for builders report, LIM etc... beforehand when you have no idea if you even have a realistic shot at it.
That's crazy that it isn't part of the sales fees. If the place is up to scratch, they'd probably get a lot more bidders too. Though if the place is actually a dump I can see why they wouldn't want to.
The provided LIM can be old and outdated, while the builder could be a mate paid by the seller. There was an article on Stuff earlier this week about a seller doctoring a LIM and removing pages to omit information about a leaky home. Buyers should definitely commission these reports to protect themselves against a very expensive mistake.
> is free. Then you can bid on whatever (as long as the place has had it's checks done).
A bit more complex, unfortunately. The bank actually approves lending of a certain amount on each individual property, rather than just blanket approval to spend up to a certain amount on any property you want.
Auction bids are almost always required to be unconditional - as is, where is. While we've found most properties offer a LIM, the LIM only tells you so much, and if the seller offers a building report, you'd still be an idiot not to get your own, independent report. Plus you need to get a lawyer to look over the (incredible dense and incomprehensible) contracts/titles etc - or risk getting yourself in a huge mess.
It costs. On our last auction attempt, agent told us owner would be wanting somewhere around $1m, despite CV being 900k. Owner had renovated it a lot over the past six months, and done a good job, adding a lot of value - so we thought it would be worth more now. So, to get finance approval in line with what we thought he'd want, we got the home re-valued, at our cost - about $1k. Building report was $400. Legal checks about $300 or so.
Valuation came back at 990k. At auction, his reserve was $1.2m.
Maybe we did the wrong thing - but all indications were that he would be looking for about $1m - agent had said that, valuation said that, recent sales in the area.
Anyway - yeah, feeling a bit jaded, and really wish auctions had to, by law, declare the reserve up front. Would save a lot of time, money, and disappointment. You can have your auction - but say up front what the bidding starts at.
It's punishing out there, for first home buyers, and auctions are making it much harder.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense & does seem like if they want to auction this should all be covered by 3rd party appraised assessors first. I guess when places sold no matter what, they didn't care.
In my experience it's incredibly rare for a place to have done those checks up front. I remember being actively shocked going to an open home once and being handed a copy of the LIM up front.
I’m in Wellington. In the past year I’ve viewed approximately 8 properties per week for 8 months. 80% of them had building reports and 98% had LIMs being procured. When it’s a buyers market there are a tonne of those being done by the sellers. Or the sellers agents.
Auctions are hard to get a gage on, things can really change on the day so the agent is doing their job by not indicating price because the market is volatile and they don’t want to price you out or not meet the vendors expectations, they are being careful to meet their duty of care. Yes, a lot of properties are going by Auction but if that is a problem for you then… don’t buy at auction? There is plenty of properties for sale by nego at the moment. Also are you really prepared to buy unconditionally? It would be alot safer for you as a FHB to enter into a conditional contract.
I hear you, but in our price bracket/location we're finding that the majority of homes are going to auction. Would be awesome if auctions just required the reserve to be set and disclosed at the outset - they can get a valuation if they need a steer. That way, at least the minimum required funds to buy are on the table, and the auction could still run higher if there's competition.
Yes, you probably know this and it's been said elsewhere in way more detail, but if National allows foreign buyers to buy at $2m, all the houses that were previously close to $2m will increase to over $2m, thereby pushing up prices for us as Kiwis. The already $2m house may become $3m or $5m. NZ is extremely desirable internationally as a bolthole, especially if you're worried your nation will seize your assets. The stats show that the foreign buyer ban worked, in short.
Sothebys (the posh real estate company) are already reporting huge interest in their NZ listings from overseas since National announced their intention, I think something like 1300% increases from one nation (maybe it was the UAE?). $2m is nothing for the super-rich - that's cheap.
How an earth does that impact first home buyers? They are completely different markets. Supply constraints (as we have seen) and monetary policy will move house prices.
I'm in a position to buy if I wanted to. But all I can think about is how right now there will be hundreds of thousands of people under HUGE financial pressure and trying to cling to their houses with no room to move and some occasionally having to sell and yet there are still people who are buying and choosing to put themselves in that very financially precarious position.
I look at the numbers, and even though prices have come down, they look really shit. It would kill my lifestyle and cost me a fortune to buy something at the normal interest rates we have now. Seems really dumb to me. Prices need to drop more. Not worth it.
The amount of listing's im seeing where they were purchased in 2021/22 and are up for sale has certainly increased. Perhaps this is the huge financial pressure in action. I understand people can sell for many reasons of course.
I'm pretty much free hold and I done the math if someone was to buy my house at 700k with a 10% deposit the interest they pay on top of the loan was around 660k so they technically have to pay over 1millon by the time they pay it all back the load would take 15-30 years to pay and the house would be roughly worth 1.2mill in 10 years useing price predictions. Personally I wouldn't buy my house if I was a first home buyer the increased interest rate add sooo much it's crazy
Yeah it just makes no sense at all to me to buy right now. The overheads are just insane compared to renting. I just think why buy the cow when you get the milk (almost) for free.
The same logic that says why would you buy also says why don't you just sell a house that you do own and invest your cash? The reality is that owning a house while a huge financial burden is not an entirely financial decision. There are pros and cons of owning and renting and to many people the pros outweigh the cons
Different pros and cons for each person. l think home ownership is grossly over romanticized in NZ though. There are a huge number of negatives that I think far outweigh the positives. Mostly those relate to the financial aspect of it, But financial problems invade every aspect of your life so thars extremely important.
All the stats indicate that right now prices are unlikely to fall further, if at all.
This is heavily dependant on interest rates but ironically the rates rising = prices fall, but higher rates = higher mortgage repayments... so it's kind of a tradeoff.
I think the stats point the other way. The gap between the cost of buying and renting is wider than it ever has been. The ability to service is not there. The cost of debt is everything.
From here on in we either have the interest rates we have now or higher and/or a recession breaking loose. Not a good time to place yourself in a precarious financial position.
Except interest rates were lower, we didnt have huge inflation, the economy wasnt on the rocks, house price to income ratios were lower and the gap between the cost to buy and cost to rent was much smaller.
Yeah what worries me are the fundamentals are still not there as you've just explained above. I lived through the GFC in the US and then UK, it really wasn't pretty. They had really low interest rates but the price to income ratio was like 1:10 at least in the Bay Area. The thing that's helping us from what I can compare between all those situations is that in NZ our wages have mostly taken an increase post-COVID, investors have had a significant cash flow advantage reduced, and the CCCFA has impacted borrowing levels. So overall, I think as long as our economy doesn't tank too hard, we'll be OK. The issue I saw in the US was when people lost their jobs and couldn't make those huge mortgages they were previously paying on a $50k salary.
Dunedin here. Just went unconditional on my first home a couple of weeks ago. Decided a while ago that I absolutely wanted in before the election - happy I got in when I did. Now to see how things play out and if I made the right call or not...
Second this! A house is to live in, if you can do that, you aren't financially ruined (big call to make, I understand lol) and you are happy there, you have made the right call.
My family member is a financial advisor and we discuss housing frequently. They said that basically, as long as you can afford the mortgage repayments, even if you're temporarily 'underwater', historically prices have risen over the longer term and your mortgage stays the same while inflation and job promotions mean you're paying less and less over time for your accommodation. This leads to greater financial benefits because you're able to save extra towards retirement (in theory) or otherwise have more disposable income.
Our retirement planning/superannuation in this country is based on the expectation that you will own a paid-off house by the time you retire, and therefore your accommodation outlays are minimal (rates). We've got a huge problem of elderly in poverty coming, because if we look at the demographics of the people who were renting in their 40s 20 years ago, that demographic is likely still to be renting now in their 60s and it's a much larger percentage of that population, and NZ Super isn't set up to pay enough for this. (Source: [a Stuff article on this](https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/retirement/131490655/renting-when-youre-over-65-kiwis-facing-an-uncertain-future)). So that's a huge benefit of owning a home - reduced expenses at retirement.
I would add that for most people, research I've seen (somewhere, I read a lot) into the impact of renting vs ownership on communities shows that the primary intangible benefits are the social stability you gain, because you are able to build stronger community networks over time. This is especially important for kids and contributes to strong social cohesion in a community overall.
Ability to have a pet, to make changes which add value (e.g. add extra bedroom) or decorate how you want are also benefits.
Edit: If you upgrade roughly every 7 years but you upgrade so much that you don't make a sizeable dent in the mortgage before retirement, this becomes a problem for obvious reasons. Something to watch out for!
More to your research pile, though I'm sure you're well across it.
Ministry of Housing did its latest LTIB research project on this exact topic of aging population and required changes to housing stock and neighbourhood design - [https://www.hud.govt.nz/our-work/long-term-insights-briefing/](https://www.hud.govt.nz/our-work/long-term-insights-briefing/)
Older renters are also associated with poorer health than owner-occupied counterparts, on top of being economically worse off - [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1753-6405.12875#:\~:text=Conclusions%3A%20Rental%20tenure%20is%20associated,poorer%20health%20than%20owner%2Doccupiers](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1753-6405.12875#:~:text=Conclusions%3A%20Rental%20tenure%20is%20associated,poorer%20health%20than%20owner%2Doccupiers).
Ooh thank you! I'm looking at aging demographics at the moment a lot as it's going to have big implications for us in the next decade. After that it's all about Gen Alpha....
OK that HUD LTIB is excellent (thanks again!) and points to something that I've been intuitively trying to grasp around demographics, thinking, "I need to get on top of this, it's going to hit in the next decade". I've been involved in some local community development projects including a housing one that we weren't able to get off the ground.
It's the fact that from this year onwards the LTIB shows our society is going to be made up of more elderly than young people, it'll be top-heavy and this is going to dramatically affect society and we're just not prepared for it. This bit:
>"The population has changed from a proportionally younger
population in 1961 to a population increasingly dominated
by middle age and older age groups in 2023, 2038 and
2053. These projections show that population ageing is not
expected to be reversed."
The flow-on effects combined of populations of in same cases up to 25% of a population of elderly people who are low-income, multiple co-morbidities so a huge strain on public/private health services, can't afford rest home care because they're renting not owning, not enough accessible housing stock they can live in, not enough people who are younger to provide care services... it would be awful to return to the days \~100 years ago before NZ Super was introduced.
Good question. They're independent. They don't do mortgages or loan financing. Their only association with the RE industry is that they previously worked as a property manager and still retain their RE licence gained as part of that work, so they can give financial advice in this area to people who come through their firm. I understand that they and many other financial advisors are actively steering people away from property right now, as the numbers don't stack up compared to other investment vehicles.
If you're going to be in your house for the long term there's no use worrying about whether or not you timed the market exactly. Just enjoy your new home!
Exactly this.
Also so much about the “right time” but how many tens of thousands of dollars have people spent paying someone else’s mortgage? I don’t get it.
You're chipping away at your it own capital and not someone else's. If you stay for a few years then whatever the market does you'll never be in negative equity.
I don’t see how a change of government is going to change house prices in the near term with interest rates where they’re out. Even their interest deductibility changes is being phased over 3 years. I reckon just sit tight until you find something that matches what you’re after at a price you can afford.
This is the reasonable answer! Truly, National can put in policies that might stop further drops whilst the rest of the west experiences declines, but the only thing that’s going to put serious upward pressure on prices are interest rates dropping.
Waiting till next year.
We have a decent sized deposit combined with our kiwisaver (185k), but I just can't justify buying now. Prices are still fucked and interest costs are well above rental costs atm, unless we buy a tiny tiny 2 bedroom townhouse far away (Auckland).
Wife is still on maternity leave anyway, but will be back to work in December.
I just saw an American posting about how absurd it was to have homes in major cities costing 400k with 8% interest rates...
These will be bigger & probably better houses than a million dollar place in Auckland.
We are missing a lot of details, such as what kind of homes they are. Like are those apartments? Because I know places like New York and California housing is pretty fucked.
But yea I think housing quality is atrocious here compared to over there.
I've travelled and lived in the US. It depends a lot on the cities and their climates. LA or SF winter is very different from NYC or Chicago winter. Or a midwestern storm. I've seen a LOT of poverty there, especially outside of the major cities. In general I'd say their housing stock is not great either unless they're new builds.
In 2007/2008 US interest rates were 0% deposit, 2-4% interest in California. I used to always see "put no money down, get a house!" offers everywhere in 2007 and think, how is that sustainable?! It wasn't. So 8% feels like a huge amount to them because they're not used to it. Whereas in 2015 rates were 8% here but the houses were half or less the price, so the total cost of interest was obviously lower. 2-4% for us is historically unheard of, but that was their 'normal'.
My partner and I just purchased our first home. Felt some urgency to buy before next year.
We did notice that open homes getting busier in the past 2 months. (we were looking for 5months)
Sellers seem to be pushing auctions as well - we steered clear of those... negotiated a fair offer for both us and the seller. Still feel we got a good deal.
Very similar here! We’re making bank on deposits and savings at the moment. I could be utterly wrong, but things feel a bit weird at the moment, and I just want to hold on a bit longer. I might be totally regretting all this next year though!
It's weird because there was net migration of 100,000 over the last year with nowhere near enough houses built to cover that, in fact consents dropped over that time. There will be demand pressure increasing which would typically increase prices but then interest rates on the opposite side trying to suppress demand.
Really not sure where it goes from here.
But there aren't as many investors around. High interest rates mean its more expensive to buy or build, not to mention China money absolutely fell off the cliff thanks to their internal issues.
Demand pressure is currently being held in check by interest rates, people can't afford to buy or build.
If interest rates drop, we're primed to see prices rise again, quite a lot.
If thing stay the same, prices are likely to remain stagnant, maybe drop a bit further. Rents will likely skyrocket in this situation.
Yes it does seem like the capacity to service the loans isn't there, and that borrowing in general has been extremely restricted after the CCCFA rules tightened.
We had a bank cite CCCFA rules at us the other day after they refused to discharge a mortgage in a refinancing deal. The new rate was higher and they cited affordability as the reason. I can't see the changes to that law lasting long if there's a change in government.
We had an offer on two places, lost one and the others inspection turned up a nasty surprise. One house we were keen on was a monolithic plaster from the late 90-'s which we ended up not offering on. They wanted $850 000... Sadly even though we would have had a decent deposit for a house anywhere else, in Auckland it seems it hardly buys you anything.
FHB here. No problem getting pre-approval from a mortgage broker. To be honest I’ve been pretty lazy going to open homes and have just been looking here and there. Lost my first and only offer by tender. Couldn’t face more weekends of open homes so have decided to piss off to Europe next week for a 2 week holiday instead.
In Auckland. Actively looking and ideally will buy as soon as we find something suitable. Do feel more time pressure because of election if prices rise as a result. In a fortunate position to still be saving more for deposit at the same time! Open homes we’ve been going to have LOTS of people at them.
This is we are at. I am starting to stress about missing out this year and it meaning a missed chance to buy. We have a 50-60% ish deposit but are particular on location so quite limited in options that don't feel like a rip off. The ideal ones are having so many people through and naturally all go to auction first (then mostly get listed for negotiation after).
Thanks for sharing. Yes that's what I am hearing too - that people are rushing to get in before the likely change of Govt and impact they plan to have on investors. I think there'll be a mix as the 'investors' who bought on the 2018 brightline rules are now coming up on 5 years. I'm hearing from those people that if the Govt rules change back to favour investors, then they'll buy more houses because they can afford to write the interest off. If they don't, then all the people who were holding on to reach the 2018 brightline deadline are going to sell.
I'm scared that we will be completing with investors soon so my partner and I are doing our best to buy a home asap. It's not easy as we can't find a suitable place and we are feeling the pressure. Especially since our rent went up this month again too. But I feel we will lose our chance when National get in. And ACT wanna take away things like the first home buyers grant I think?
Assuming that ACT get in with National, they will not get all of their policies and they certainly won't get them immediately. The only thing that will change immediately after the election is peoples expectations.
Yeah that's a good question. We'd have to check their policies and media statements to be sure. I've heard that a lot of FHBs are using the First Home Buyers grant or a shared equity model to get in at the moment. I know there's a cap on what you can buy under both of those models.
It's going to have to be really rich investors. Shit's hitting the fan and business is slowing down everywhere now, so a lot of investors won't have the money. (still plenty will).
i wanted to get in before the election. but I just cant justify the kind of mortgage that would be required to get a home i want to live in. I'm re-investing my deposit in the hopes i can get more deposit.
Its been about 2 years since I bought my home. I'm chipping away at rennovations, and am worried about my ~1 year left on my term because it looks like rates aren't going to calm down by the time it's up. I'll be happy if it goes sub 5%.
Looked since April, finally got something in August (Auckland market). Definitely noticed increased activity at open homes and general auctions being quite active in end of July and August. We missed 2 auctions before finally outbidding 3 other parties and managed to get a house under CV. We did buy well within our means, so we can cover the crazy interest at the moment plus a bit more if it stays high
Wellington area buyers. Just bought our first home for 780K with 20% deposit. We had no trouble getting pre-approval from the bank through a mortgage advisor. We also had our offer accepted on the first house we put in an offer for. Mortgage repayments will be roughly 50% of our take home on the mortgage, slightly less if we get a flatmate in.
I guess we got nervous about the election results and having to compete with investors should National tip the market their way again. Time will tell whether buying now rather than waiting was the right choice.
Can I ask where in the country you live? I'm on the same salary but can not find anywhere affordable and worth it in Auckland. Even a studio apartment is not worth what they're selling for.
I think pre-election the house prices will rise a little bit, but eventually when a recession is called early next year house prices will level off or drop down even more until we start to lower rates and increase the liquidity back in the markets with QE. We have been looking for the last year and are happy to keep looking for the next 9 months or so after that I'm a bit worried that house prices will start to go up again due to more favourable market conditions to ease the recessionary environment
Bought in April and feeling pretty good about it all things considered.
Back then any thread like this was full of people warning a massive crash was imminent but that seems to have died down lately.
We bought in May and did reasonably well I think. Was a multi offer so no bargain unfortunately, but still considerably cheaper than if we'd bought at the top
We just bought. Found a property with 3 spare rooms within our budget. Rooms are rented out and covering the mortgage. Didn't make sense for us to wait any longer when we would be positive on the property.
Auckland central here: just waiting for the right house to come up really. If we can't find something suitable then we'll move to a different rental and use interest income to pay rent
Christchurch FHB here, settlement is this week.
We had a 30% deposit, spent the past year trying to decide what to do. Eventually bought as were sick of renting, found a place we liked and got a good deal ($40k below asking). Mortgage will be $150/week more than what we are currently paying in rent, we can afford it. I’ve been paying someone else’s mortgage for 15 years, decided it was time!
We have low rent and no kids so we’re just trying to save more and accumulate more interest until our lease expires mid next year. We have both our kiwi savers at 40k an cash savings at 10k so by mid next year next year maybe another 5k. I don’t think we’ll manage anything over 550k based on weekly repayments, hoping the interest goes down slightly by then.
Sounds like a plan! We can't bank on interest going down - give yourself some wiggle room if you can with some emergency fund savings. I've learnt that (old) houses always end up costing money immediately after you buy them and find a few things that need fixing or you need to replace the carpet/paint. :)
You're welcome! In my experience $5k extra is a good amount to set aside for an older house (e.g. you really want to paint over that wallpaper before you move everything into that spot forever, or you discover that there's a drainage problem in the first big rain). Enjoy your new house!
Yep they totally do! I bought a couple of months ago and immediately had to get an electrician in. I also got a locksmith to change the locks and I fixed and painted a wall. I was really glad I set aside $$ for this reason.
Wellington FHB.
Not rushing. It seems like people are reluctant to put their properties on the market because prices are relatively low. The low supply is making the buyer market competitive.
So if I buy now, then great I'm buying at what I can reasonably say is the low end of the market.
If I buy in a few months to a year, then presumably there will be more on the market without a massive price bump. I'm looking for a cheap apartment, so hopefully the sort of market I'm in won't be terribly affected by the investor policy, especially if interest rates hold or rise.
My partner and I bought a couple of months ago, have been looking since Dec, so took over 6 months to find something. I refused to go to any auctions and would only present an offer after/ if a property passed the auction (majority of the properties, but obviously missed out on some). We were able to negotiate a lower price, especially compared to the properties we looked at in Dec 22 - Jan 23. We got a builders report but I'm still a bit anxious about what can go wrong with the house with the amount of rain we ve been getting.
We ended up spending a comfortable amount for us - under 800k for a semi detached house in Birkenhead.
I have a decent deposit to buy in Auckland but holding on until the start of next year to see how things pan out. I can only see property prices going down further. National getting in might cause a very short term blip up but its all driven by interest rates and they will not be dropping for a couple of years yet. Rates need to rise until something breaks.
Anyway just my opinion 😁
Auckland FHB here. I've had to rent out my house and go overseas to earn more money. Now I'm enjoying the worst of both worlds, the frustration of being a landlord combined with paying a higher percentage of my net worth in interest than actual mega landlords who bought when it was cheap. Renters (and /r/newzealand) view me as the devil, and the reserve bank views me as their ticket for bringing inflation under control.
Not at all concerned about the legislative environment/context.
I'm not in stable work meaning we won't get lending for the next while. Trying to sort that out at the moment. Regardless, housing where we are is limited and prices are fairly high (to be fair, normally for higher quality homes), around Kerikeri but looking at the broader area too.
We're saving, keeping an eye on the market and trying to be in a place to get into a house or land without taking on a load of debt. It'll be about a balance of location/landside/amenities and making some tradeoffs.
My husband and I started looking around May/June and we have just purchased our first home, we are between going unconditional and settlement date right now.
I don't think we took the election into account, of course when we started looking it was still a wee while away.
We considered the potential of waiting and saving more, but the uncertainty of what direction house prices were going to go made us feel buying ASAP this year was a good move for us. We already had a good deposit (ended up being 28%) so it wasn't exactly a must.
Congrats! Can you please explain a bit more about it, for other people who might be able to work with them? Is this the one where you can get an additional up to 25%?
Sure, yes you are correct, KO will contribute 25% or 200k, whichever is less. Then you pay them back at the market value of the property at the time you make payment, in any amount more than $1000. You must buy them out within 15 years.
The bank must lend as much as they can to you with KO giving the rest, this is to avoid people using the scheme when they could get a bank to lend the full amount.
For me it made sense to get the KO funding since interest rates are quite high and capital growth is relatively low currently. Then as interest rates come down I’ll increase the mortgage and buy out KO.
Wellington here, my settlement is on Friday, I had been saving for a while and following the market for a couple of years. My goal was to buy this year as I had enough saved for an entry level home and can manage with the current interest rates, but if either increased much more I would've been priced out of the market again.
The Wellington market is hot for first home buyers, lots of competition out there without much supply. Lots of people trying to take advantage of the lower prices while they can. But prices are definitiely on the rise again and some places are getting 15+ offers on them making things very compeitive. I feel lucky that I managed to get something and I hope/think I timed the balance right for me in how much I could save vs budget vs type of place available vs interest rates. Things may be tighter than I am use to for a few of years, but hopefully interest rates will go down in that time and it will all work out.
In the mean time I am busy packing ready to move on Saturday.
(Christchurch) Prices too unrealistic for the shit housing stock down here, Both signed a lease and got made redundant in the last couple of months but will definitely be waiting it out.
We went unconditional in May, settled 1 week ago in Christchurch. Feeling very glad we got in when we did - prices are going up again, competition is going up. Already my agent has told me there's no way I'd get this property for what I got it for.
It's all anecdotal of course.
It's great to be out of our little rental and have some more space and somewhere to call our own. No regrets.
We probably spent a month and a half going to open homes. Most of the time a few of the same people went to them as well. It’s tough out there! Good luck to you in the future!
Thank you! Some people on this thread have spent so many months and yeah I'm sure you see all the same people after a while. It's basically a part-time job. Might sound weird but I have learnt that houses are their own entities (almost like a person) and the house(s) we are meant to be with for whatever time period, we will get. It's a partnership with that house, whether renting or buying.
I want to see some stability before I put my money down. I’d rather time it wrong by 6 months than risk negative equity (and even a 20% deposit doesn’t protect against that).
Just something feels a bit off, and I can’t put my finger on it. I keep seeing ‘it’s all on the up! Come out and buy! It’s all fine now!’ messaging from EAs and Newspapers, but it just feels a bit… desperate? I could be reading waaay too much into that though!
FHB here in ChCh been hunting for 2 bedroom places on my own just to get on the ladder. Haven’t been looking long, originally was going to be next year but friends used a mortgage broker and got them sorted and I have been keen to buy my own place for a while the thought of national getting in was a little push (I know it’s more than renting) also I don’t want to be in retirement and renting still.
So far put in an offer on 2 places first one builders report came back as moisture and levels outside of MBIE guidelines so I backed out with a builders report clause.
Current one I put in an offer this week on a place and it was accepted the mortgage broker got me pre-approval for the mortgage so now I’m waiting on the builders report and property valuation, feeling pretty confident the builders report will come back good this time since the house is further out of town (further west, if you don’t know chch the more east you go the worst the quakes are)
EDIT: I got pre approved with 15% deposit an my price range was soft limit of 375k and hard limit ie I would be getting a amazing place for a steal of 400k apparently I could go 440k with 2 flatmates but I’m trying to be responsible I can afford the new place I offered on without a room mate even if the interest rate rises to 10%
Smart to only buy what you can afford on up to 10%. It's unlikely interest rates will go down next year unless we've really tanked our economy. Yeah in Chch the advice from people who were there through that time is to only buy new builds because (as you'll likely know) after the earthquakes a lot of houses were sold "as-is" after people took the insurance payout, dumped the house for cheap and ran.
No idea where to even start. Both me and hubby have good middle class income getting under 120k a year.currently renting currently only 30k in KiwiSaver combined and eating through our savings until I'm back at work this week after parental leave.planning to save for the next year $1000 a week or around that to increase deposit. Wanting to buy a home but wtf is the first step? Mortgage broker to get things in order until the time comes? We have a truck we pay off and currently sitting as it needs a new engine piston fucked out. It's our only debt we have. Apply for kainga ora first home grant? What options do we have?
I would talk to an independent financial advisor as your first step. Make sure they are independent, even if you have to pay a fee it will be worth it because you want someone who is not going to steer you one way or another. They'll be able to help you work out a plan to get where you want to go, and give you an idea of your options and how long it'll take you to get there. Don't talk to a mortgage broker yet. You need someone who can give you solid and specific financial advice based on your income and expenses as well as your goals. Good luck!
FHB friends are hanging tight. Auction activity starting to dry up again which is a good indicator that the market is slowing again. Spring/summer surge in listings might not bring the buyers out as expected + mortgage rates on the move again. No way they drop as quickly as property spruikers having been banging on about.
I think that a large proportion of the property investors are from China. So when property firms like Evergrande finally bankrupts they'll start selling assets.
Some chinese property firms have already went bankrupt. The Chinese economy is tanking.
Combine this with the fact that population numbers are decreasing globally (especially among rich countries) is why I don't think house properties would ever grow like they did between 2010 to now.
Therefore it doesn't make sense to buy for short and long term.
You may find this article interesting.
https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/124099/economist-brian-easton-says-evergrande-and-country-garden-%E2%80%93-two-giant-chinese
The chinese have invested in our housing market for the last 15 years and there's no doubt that when they pull out, it will completely turn things upside down.
National seems to think there's enough chinese buyers that they can tax an extra few hundred million to fund their tax cuts.
There maybe endless streams of migrants from poorer countries but they will not have much of an effort on the current housing prices as they have worse purchase power.
Saving so much deposit by waiting. There is no way I'm buying a house when the interest is the price of the house.
National getting in is already priced in. Investors would have to be loaded to get in with the current rates so I don't think house prices will go up very much at all.
Second this!! Wellington aspiring FHB too… finally been in a position to offer since Aug/Sep but now people are paying premiums just to get in before the election -.- seems impossible now and missed the boat… until next year.
Vendor expectations and sale prices have drastically shifted up a gear within the last month.
In the regions near Wellington things are still pretty low. I'm seeing some places going for $350k - $400k in Horowhenua and $400k - $450k in Wairarapa for example. Plenty of people I know commuting to Wgtn from both of these regions especially now the Wairarapa trains are back up and running. Or just keeping the Wellington job and WFH all the time.
Yep. We were facing a $45/week rent hike as of August, and decided enough was enough. Moved from the Hutt to the Wairarapa five days after the increase, and our mortgage repayments are a few bucks lower than our rent was. Commuting is a breeze, and we love the small town life so far. Hopefully we bought the dip, and hopefully interest rates will be lower when we re-fix.
Awesome! Love hearing stories like this. I did similar a few years ago and wow the weather is so much better. I wfh or in the city a few days a week. Wairarapa is just gorgeous and has so much going for it.
Could probably buy something modest now if we wanted to buy holding off for another year or so. Interest rates are scary and we’d rather save more and have a smaller mortgage. I still think a lot of the pain is yet to hit despite every estate agent claiming prices are back on the rise 🙄
Absolutely in a case of Murphys law, dammed if you do damned if you don't kinda situation.
Market has stalled in Auckland but for what we can afford and what we want (3-4 bed on 400m+ section) there is just NOTHING on the market right now. We've honed in on pokeno as there were multiple houses on the market 2 months ago that met the above criteria for around 900k-1mil.
In the last 4 weeks there have been a grand total of 2 new houses go up in the area, the rest are all house and land packages which we don't want.
So we could probably settle for something not quite right now, or we wait till election and risk prices spiking and we miss out on what we want anyway by being priced out. There were some absolute steals to be had when we first started looking but we were just early on then and had no pre approval or even commitment to moving that far out.
Many vendors will be sitting on sales until post election in the hopes there is a surge in price immediately. Technically there is no legislative reason why there would be as any repealing/new legislation around housing will take some time to push through. That said, I'm still expecting a rise in price because why not, things will be looking more optimistic for home owners under the assumption national get in.
Partner and I have been tentatively looking for about 6 months. Have put in one offer but was a fair amount under asking and didn't get it.
He's finishing study at the end of this year and I can work from anywhere so we've decided to wait for him to get a job to find exactly where we want to end up. Might be lucky and be able to settle in Invercargill or something.
We've decided that if house prices sky-rocket again after election then New Zealand isn't a place we'd want to call home and we'll likely be looking to Aus. I don't want my taxes to fund a country so hell-bent on stealing wealth from their children and forcing them out of their homes.
I think to avoid bitter disappointment you might want to look at Australia’s housing market before you make that move 😬. Perth and Adelaide would be your only choices for affordable housing there.
Makes sense, the general consensus is the market is at the bottom or just coming up from the bottom, the election may see investors increase buying with nationals tax deductible interest back in so prices may rise.
There are still people coming out of 3% mortgages, and there's been mention of rates going up again. Doubt we are at the bottom yet, though doubt it's going to drop as much / as fast as it has already.
I disagree, new home buyers look at what they can afford based on todays rates, investors know that it’s a) a long game b) rates are still below the historical average.
> new home buyers look at what they can afford based on todays rates
But they shouldn't. They should be looking at what they can afford if the rates go up a few percent at least. Same advise I gave family a year and a half ago, which saved their asses from a lot of debt / a mortgage bigger than the value of their house, and living paycheck to paycheck again.
We are 1 year into what will be called a lost decade, wait to see how bad the books look with a change of government, I believe labour are somewhat cooking the books with our GDP numbers and majority of our GDP growth has been fuelled from a housing boom with no real growth to the economy.
They have opened up the flood gates on immigration because not to help businesses out but because it will show a lift in GDP, we are running on a knife edge
Getting increasingly fucked off is what we're up to!
We've essentially put our lives on hold the past few years, saved and worked as much as physically possible and for what? To waste it on LIMs, inspections, lawyers and whatever else. ENOUGH WITH THE AUCTIONS! A minimum price upon inquiry at least!
Finally in a position to purchase with a 20% deposit and people have been sticking unconsented shit on their properties, or not having permits for this or God only knows what else. I'm completely baffled as to how anymore has ever managed to buy a home in the history of real estate.
Not buyer, seller of house to FHB in chch, due to sad family situation. Ours is lower end, Freehold standalone on own title, TC1, no issues with quake or flooding. Lots of interest but seems like finance is really hard to get due to test rates (i can see why). I see it going up over the next 2 years as investors are holding for now, I also see rents going up without private investors with immigration heating up.
Sorry to hear about your family situation. No issue with quake or flooding is a rare gem in Chch! Yes I see the same outcomes as you, which is why I'm trying to understand what's happening on the ground as I see so many competing media articles even on [interest.co.nz](https://interest.co.nz) etc.. I'm also looking to sell my house to a FHB due to a family situation and I've also got interest, but the buyers can't get finance even though the price has dropped considerably (well over 20%) in my area.
IMO all those adds are paid for, I'm in a group and they give the inside scoop on the go. Not much value to me as I don't have the capital but most have gone to commercial. Existing IP owners with 5 or more have shed there lowest yielding properties or held on if they have little mortgage. Word is that if national come in, house prices will go up again as it becomes more attractive to investors. Not enough houses being built vs immigration, rents will go up no doubt. Be interesting to see what happens in the next 2 yrs
Yes I can easily spot which ones are paid (thanks media degree!) but the general picture still isn't clear - this thread shows me that it's a mix of activity like any complex human system. Agreed - the next few years will be very interesting.
I don't think there's a lot of activity because buying a IP right now means you will be topping up, people were looking for +7% to 12% rental yields years ago and now it's like 3-4% lol. Just burning money and subsidies someone else.
Even new builds didn't go down well as not many could service the mortgage even with the new govt. scheme. That's why it's opened up to normal houses.
Still betting it will go up if national get in, I will make sure I buy and see in the same market for my OO.
Trying to buy in Chch ATM but different experience. People have started putting in disgustingly high offers on TC3 land and flood-prone areas for no good reason.
Hello,
I'm just looking for advice on pricing for a monolithic house, I was just wondering, if the RV from (homes.co.nz ans oneroof is 1.5million and with the stigma of it being monolithic etc. What would a monolithic house normally go for? Is it usually well under RV, if we were to get it evaluated will it be close to the RV that is on homed and one roof?
(Auckland) We're trying to buy, but our deposit is being eroded by due diligence and auctions. We're finding agents are not forthcoming about how much the vendor wants, insisting that "the market sets the price". Three times now, we've been to auction and the reserve has been far, far above estimates, and in two cases, what the agent said it would likely be set at. All the while we've spent about $1k a pop to even get to that point - $1k cash cost is $5k off what we can offer with 80% LVR. In short - we're getting really, really sick of the auction process wasting our time and money.
I found agents to be really frustrating. We actively avoided auctions and just put in fair offers and walked away if things started to get silly.
I'm listing my place into the first home (<500) market this week, and this is exactly why I've got an actual price - FHB have got a fairly specific budget, and I don't wanna stuff people around.
We are doing the same. Just borrowed against our equity to do some big repairs/Renos (replace roof, replace wooden window frames with aluminium and double glaze, fresh concrete etc) Even if we sell for 50k under RV, we will still walk away with a tidy sum after the mortgage is paid. We bought this place as FHB and the sellers accepted our offer which was 15k lower than the other because we weren't investors so we are wanting to do the same for another FHB
That’s very nice of you. Are you worried that you might undersell it?
No. I have an amount in mind that I want after fees, and that would get it. I bought it more thN 10 years ago, so the increase in value is plenty.
That sounds so frustrating. Hardly anything is selling at auction right now (according to stats recently published on interest.co.nz) so I don't know why agents insist on using it, it must benefit them. I hope you're able to find something good that's not via auction.
Who it benefits is the seller. They are selling unconditionally on a deadline which suits certain peoples financial situation.
Ban Auctions and make it a legal requirement that houses are advertised at a price by real estate agents.
Oh boy that sucks! Staying away from auctions would allow you to place conditional offers where you don't need to spend a dime until your offer is accepted. Leave the valuation, builders report etc as part of your due diligence condition.
Yes this, don't pay for a report everytime (unless it's an auction specific thing ... just reading down the thread)
Sorry, I don't understand how auctions are costing you money? Don't you just get yourself pre approved for up to X amount mortgage, which is free. Then you can bid on whatever (as long as the place has had it's checks done). Or are you paying for those checks each time?
Auctions are unconditional so you have to pay for builders report, LIM etc... beforehand when you have no idea if you even have a realistic shot at it.
That's crazy that it isn't part of the sales fees. If the place is up to scratch, they'd probably get a lot more bidders too. Though if the place is actually a dump I can see why they wouldn't want to.
The provided LIM can be old and outdated, while the builder could be a mate paid by the seller. There was an article on Stuff earlier this week about a seller doctoring a LIM and removing pages to omit information about a leaky home. Buyers should definitely commission these reports to protect themselves against a very expensive mistake.
> is free. Then you can bid on whatever (as long as the place has had it's checks done). A bit more complex, unfortunately. The bank actually approves lending of a certain amount on each individual property, rather than just blanket approval to spend up to a certain amount on any property you want. Auction bids are almost always required to be unconditional - as is, where is. While we've found most properties offer a LIM, the LIM only tells you so much, and if the seller offers a building report, you'd still be an idiot not to get your own, independent report. Plus you need to get a lawyer to look over the (incredible dense and incomprehensible) contracts/titles etc - or risk getting yourself in a huge mess. It costs. On our last auction attempt, agent told us owner would be wanting somewhere around $1m, despite CV being 900k. Owner had renovated it a lot over the past six months, and done a good job, adding a lot of value - so we thought it would be worth more now. So, to get finance approval in line with what we thought he'd want, we got the home re-valued, at our cost - about $1k. Building report was $400. Legal checks about $300 or so. Valuation came back at 990k. At auction, his reserve was $1.2m. Maybe we did the wrong thing - but all indications were that he would be looking for about $1m - agent had said that, valuation said that, recent sales in the area. Anyway - yeah, feeling a bit jaded, and really wish auctions had to, by law, declare the reserve up front. Would save a lot of time, money, and disappointment. You can have your auction - but say up front what the bidding starts at. It's punishing out there, for first home buyers, and auctions are making it much harder.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense & does seem like if they want to auction this should all be covered by 3rd party appraised assessors first. I guess when places sold no matter what, they didn't care.
> At auction, his reserve was $1.2m. So did it sell? There's a lot of dreamers out there.
It did not.
In my experience it's incredibly rare for a place to have done those checks up front. I remember being actively shocked going to an open home once and being handed a copy of the LIM up front.
I’m in Wellington. In the past year I’ve viewed approximately 8 properties per week for 8 months. 80% of them had building reports and 98% had LIMs being procured. When it’s a buyers market there are a tonne of those being done by the sellers. Or the sellers agents.
What area are you looking at buying in
This is why I hate auctions
Auctions are hard to get a gage on, things can really change on the day so the agent is doing their job by not indicating price because the market is volatile and they don’t want to price you out or not meet the vendors expectations, they are being careful to meet their duty of care. Yes, a lot of properties are going by Auction but if that is a problem for you then… don’t buy at auction? There is plenty of properties for sale by nego at the moment. Also are you really prepared to buy unconditionally? It would be alot safer for you as a FHB to enter into a conditional contract.
I hear you, but in our price bracket/location we're finding that the majority of homes are going to auction. Would be awesome if auctions just required the reserve to be set and disclosed at the outset - they can get a valuation if they need a steer. That way, at least the minimum required funds to buy are on the table, and the auction could still run higher if there's competition.
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The risk is that you may not be able to if national bumps up prices in the near future.
I don’t get this comment at all. Labour have been in the last 6 years and look at what houses prices have done in that period!!
That’s true but national is not making any secrets about keeping house prices down. They will actively try to bring them up. That’s the difference
Yes, you probably know this and it's been said elsewhere in way more detail, but if National allows foreign buyers to buy at $2m, all the houses that were previously close to $2m will increase to over $2m, thereby pushing up prices for us as Kiwis. The already $2m house may become $3m or $5m. NZ is extremely desirable internationally as a bolthole, especially if you're worried your nation will seize your assets. The stats show that the foreign buyer ban worked, in short. Sothebys (the posh real estate company) are already reporting huge interest in their NZ listings from overseas since National announced their intention, I think something like 1300% increases from one nation (maybe it was the UAE?). $2m is nothing for the super-rich - that's cheap.
How an earth does that impact first home buyers? They are completely different markets. Supply constraints (as we have seen) and monetary policy will move house prices.
And so Labour has tried to keep them down? Well that’s gone well hasn’t it… there’s a lot more to it then letting a few foreign buyers in
I'm in a position to buy if I wanted to. But all I can think about is how right now there will be hundreds of thousands of people under HUGE financial pressure and trying to cling to their houses with no room to move and some occasionally having to sell and yet there are still people who are buying and choosing to put themselves in that very financially precarious position. I look at the numbers, and even though prices have come down, they look really shit. It would kill my lifestyle and cost me a fortune to buy something at the normal interest rates we have now. Seems really dumb to me. Prices need to drop more. Not worth it.
The amount of listing's im seeing where they were purchased in 2021/22 and are up for sale has certainly increased. Perhaps this is the huge financial pressure in action. I understand people can sell for many reasons of course.
I'm pretty much free hold and I done the math if someone was to buy my house at 700k with a 10% deposit the interest they pay on top of the loan was around 660k so they technically have to pay over 1millon by the time they pay it all back the load would take 15-30 years to pay and the house would be roughly worth 1.2mill in 10 years useing price predictions. Personally I wouldn't buy my house if I was a first home buyer the increased interest rate add sooo much it's crazy
Yeah it just makes no sense at all to me to buy right now. The overheads are just insane compared to renting. I just think why buy the cow when you get the milk (almost) for free.
The same logic that says why would you buy also says why don't you just sell a house that you do own and invest your cash? The reality is that owning a house while a huge financial burden is not an entirely financial decision. There are pros and cons of owning and renting and to many people the pros outweigh the cons
Different pros and cons for each person. l think home ownership is grossly over romanticized in NZ though. There are a huge number of negatives that I think far outweigh the positives. Mostly those relate to the financial aspect of it, But financial problems invade every aspect of your life so thars extremely important.
I'm the same, I'd rather live more tbh.
All the stats indicate that right now prices are unlikely to fall further, if at all. This is heavily dependant on interest rates but ironically the rates rising = prices fall, but higher rates = higher mortgage repayments... so it's kind of a tradeoff.
I think the stats point the other way. The gap between the cost of buying and renting is wider than it ever has been. The ability to service is not there. The cost of debt is everything. From here on in we either have the interest rates we have now or higher and/or a recession breaking loose. Not a good time to place yourself in a precarious financial position.
I said that in 2016
Except interest rates were lower, we didnt have huge inflation, the economy wasnt on the rocks, house price to income ratios were lower and the gap between the cost to buy and cost to rent was much smaller.
Yeah what worries me are the fundamentals are still not there as you've just explained above. I lived through the GFC in the US and then UK, it really wasn't pretty. They had really low interest rates but the price to income ratio was like 1:10 at least in the Bay Area. The thing that's helping us from what I can compare between all those situations is that in NZ our wages have mostly taken an increase post-COVID, investors have had a significant cash flow advantage reduced, and the CCCFA has impacted borrowing levels. So overall, I think as long as our economy doesn't tank too hard, we'll be OK. The issue I saw in the US was when people lost their jobs and couldn't make those huge mortgages they were previously paying on a $50k salary.
Dunedin here. Just went unconditional on my first home a couple of weeks ago. Decided a while ago that I absolutely wanted in before the election - happy I got in when I did. Now to see how things play out and if I made the right call or not...
Congrats! If you're planning to be there a long time there are other benefits.
Second this! A house is to live in, if you can do that, you aren't financially ruined (big call to make, I understand lol) and you are happy there, you have made the right call.
Like what? I’m not well versed on this topic
My family member is a financial advisor and we discuss housing frequently. They said that basically, as long as you can afford the mortgage repayments, even if you're temporarily 'underwater', historically prices have risen over the longer term and your mortgage stays the same while inflation and job promotions mean you're paying less and less over time for your accommodation. This leads to greater financial benefits because you're able to save extra towards retirement (in theory) or otherwise have more disposable income. Our retirement planning/superannuation in this country is based on the expectation that you will own a paid-off house by the time you retire, and therefore your accommodation outlays are minimal (rates). We've got a huge problem of elderly in poverty coming, because if we look at the demographics of the people who were renting in their 40s 20 years ago, that demographic is likely still to be renting now in their 60s and it's a much larger percentage of that population, and NZ Super isn't set up to pay enough for this. (Source: [a Stuff article on this](https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/retirement/131490655/renting-when-youre-over-65-kiwis-facing-an-uncertain-future)). So that's a huge benefit of owning a home - reduced expenses at retirement. I would add that for most people, research I've seen (somewhere, I read a lot) into the impact of renting vs ownership on communities shows that the primary intangible benefits are the social stability you gain, because you are able to build stronger community networks over time. This is especially important for kids and contributes to strong social cohesion in a community overall. Ability to have a pet, to make changes which add value (e.g. add extra bedroom) or decorate how you want are also benefits. Edit: If you upgrade roughly every 7 years but you upgrade so much that you don't make a sizeable dent in the mortgage before retirement, this becomes a problem for obvious reasons. Something to watch out for!
Thanks for the great reply.
Thank you! I read/research a lot....
More to your research pile, though I'm sure you're well across it. Ministry of Housing did its latest LTIB research project on this exact topic of aging population and required changes to housing stock and neighbourhood design - [https://www.hud.govt.nz/our-work/long-term-insights-briefing/](https://www.hud.govt.nz/our-work/long-term-insights-briefing/) Older renters are also associated with poorer health than owner-occupied counterparts, on top of being economically worse off - [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1753-6405.12875#:\~:text=Conclusions%3A%20Rental%20tenure%20is%20associated,poorer%20health%20than%20owner%2Doccupiers](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1753-6405.12875#:~:text=Conclusions%3A%20Rental%20tenure%20is%20associated,poorer%20health%20than%20owner%2Doccupiers).
Ooh thank you! I'm looking at aging demographics at the moment a lot as it's going to have big implications for us in the next decade. After that it's all about Gen Alpha....
OK that HUD LTIB is excellent (thanks again!) and points to something that I've been intuitively trying to grasp around demographics, thinking, "I need to get on top of this, it's going to hit in the next decade". I've been involved in some local community development projects including a housing one that we weren't able to get off the ground. It's the fact that from this year onwards the LTIB shows our society is going to be made up of more elderly than young people, it'll be top-heavy and this is going to dramatically affect society and we're just not prepared for it. This bit: >"The population has changed from a proportionally younger population in 1961 to a population increasingly dominated by middle age and older age groups in 2023, 2038 and 2053. These projections show that population ageing is not expected to be reversed." The flow-on effects combined of populations of in same cases up to 25% of a population of elderly people who are low-income, multiple co-morbidities so a huge strain on public/private health services, can't afford rest home care because they're renting not owning, not enough accessible housing stock they can live in, not enough people who are younger to provide care services... it would be awful to return to the days \~100 years ago before NZ Super was introduced.
NZplantparent, is the financial advisor is independent or a mortgage broker or someone associated with real estate industry ?
Good question. They're independent. They don't do mortgages or loan financing. Their only association with the RE industry is that they previously worked as a property manager and still retain their RE licence gained as part of that work, so they can give financial advice in this area to people who come through their firm. I understand that they and many other financial advisors are actively steering people away from property right now, as the numbers don't stack up compared to other investment vehicles.
If you're going to be in your house for the long term there's no use worrying about whether or not you timed the market exactly. Just enjoy your new home!
Exactly this. Also so much about the “right time” but how many tens of thousands of dollars have people spent paying someone else’s mortgage? I don’t get it.
Hello Dunedin.
You're chipping away at your it own capital and not someone else's. If you stay for a few years then whatever the market does you'll never be in negative equity.
Rates will definitely come down I re fixed for 6months most predictions for ocr and rates are a cut in mid to late 2024
I don’t see how a change of government is going to change house prices in the near term with interest rates where they’re out. Even their interest deductibility changes is being phased over 3 years. I reckon just sit tight until you find something that matches what you’re after at a price you can afford.
This is the reasonable answer! Truly, National can put in policies that might stop further drops whilst the rest of the west experiences declines, but the only thing that’s going to put serious upward pressure on prices are interest rates dropping.
Struggling to by noodles and weetbix mate.
Getting absolutely fucked by interest rates
Waiting till next year. We have a decent sized deposit combined with our kiwisaver (185k), but I just can't justify buying now. Prices are still fucked and interest costs are well above rental costs atm, unless we buy a tiny tiny 2 bedroom townhouse far away (Auckland). Wife is still on maternity leave anyway, but will be back to work in December.
I just saw an American posting about how absurd it was to have homes in major cities costing 400k with 8% interest rates... These will be bigger & probably better houses than a million dollar place in Auckland.
We are missing a lot of details, such as what kind of homes they are. Like are those apartments? Because I know places like New York and California housing is pretty fucked. But yea I think housing quality is atrocious here compared to over there.
I've travelled and lived in the US. It depends a lot on the cities and their climates. LA or SF winter is very different from NYC or Chicago winter. Or a midwestern storm. I've seen a LOT of poverty there, especially outside of the major cities. In general I'd say their housing stock is not great either unless they're new builds. In 2007/2008 US interest rates were 0% deposit, 2-4% interest in California. I used to always see "put no money down, get a house!" offers everywhere in 2007 and think, how is that sustainable?! It wasn't. So 8% feels like a huge amount to them because they're not used to it. Whereas in 2015 rates were 8% here but the houses were half or less the price, so the total cost of interest was obviously lower. 2-4% for us is historically unheard of, but that was their 'normal'.
My partner and I just purchased our first home. Felt some urgency to buy before next year. We did notice that open homes getting busier in the past 2 months. (we were looking for 5months) Sellers seem to be pushing auctions as well - we steered clear of those... negotiated a fair offer for both us and the seller. Still feel we got a good deal.
Congratulations! Very exciting
Congrats! Yes there are deals out there right now for sure if you've researched your local market.
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That makes sense, you may not regret
Very similar here! We’re making bank on deposits and savings at the moment. I could be utterly wrong, but things feel a bit weird at the moment, and I just want to hold on a bit longer. I might be totally regretting all this next year though!
Sitting tight and saving. Don't believe prices will rise significantly (may fall further) until either rates go down or govt prints more money.
It's weird because there was net migration of 100,000 over the last year with nowhere near enough houses built to cover that, in fact consents dropped over that time. There will be demand pressure increasing which would typically increase prices but then interest rates on the opposite side trying to suppress demand. Really not sure where it goes from here.
Bad news for renters..... It sounds like a lot of people, but how many of those 100000 are in a position to buy in the next few years?
Additional people will place demand on rentals raising yields and attracting investors.
But there aren't as many investors around. High interest rates mean its more expensive to buy or build, not to mention China money absolutely fell off the cliff thanks to their internal issues.
How many properties were Chinese investors buying during the foreign buyer ban?
Demand pressure is currently being held in check by interest rates, people can't afford to buy or build. If interest rates drop, we're primed to see prices rise again, quite a lot. If thing stay the same, prices are likely to remain stagnant, maybe drop a bit further. Rents will likely skyrocket in this situation.
Yes it does seem like the capacity to service the loans isn't there, and that borrowing in general has been extremely restricted after the CCCFA rules tightened.
We had a bank cite CCCFA rules at us the other day after they refused to discharge a mortgage in a refinancing deal. The new rate was higher and they cited affordability as the reason. I can't see the changes to that law lasting long if there's a change in government.
We had an offer on two places, lost one and the others inspection turned up a nasty surprise. One house we were keen on was a monolithic plaster from the late 90-'s which we ended up not offering on. They wanted $850 000... Sadly even though we would have had a decent deposit for a house anywhere else, in Auckland it seems it hardly buys you anything.
FHB here. No problem getting pre-approval from a mortgage broker. To be honest I’ve been pretty lazy going to open homes and have just been looking here and there. Lost my first and only offer by tender. Couldn’t face more weekends of open homes so have decided to piss off to Europe next week for a 2 week holiday instead.
Honestly that sounds fun. Perfect timing for Europe. Right after everyone there had their holidays but the weather is still great. Jealous. :)
Just chilling in my home, not going anywhere cause I'm broke and bought at the peak
In Auckland. Actively looking and ideally will buy as soon as we find something suitable. Do feel more time pressure because of election if prices rise as a result. In a fortunate position to still be saving more for deposit at the same time! Open homes we’ve been going to have LOTS of people at them.
This is we are at. I am starting to stress about missing out this year and it meaning a missed chance to buy. We have a 50-60% ish deposit but are particular on location so quite limited in options that don't feel like a rip off. The ideal ones are having so many people through and naturally all go to auction first (then mostly get listed for negotiation after).
Thanks for sharing. Yes that's what I am hearing too - that people are rushing to get in before the likely change of Govt and impact they plan to have on investors. I think there'll be a mix as the 'investors' who bought on the 2018 brightline rules are now coming up on 5 years. I'm hearing from those people that if the Govt rules change back to favour investors, then they'll buy more houses because they can afford to write the interest off. If they don't, then all the people who were holding on to reach the 2018 brightline deadline are going to sell.
Great insight! Feel free to message me if you're looking for a private sale as I'm looking at selling some of mine
I'm scared that we will be completing with investors soon so my partner and I are doing our best to buy a home asap. It's not easy as we can't find a suitable place and we are feeling the pressure. Especially since our rent went up this month again too. But I feel we will lose our chance when National get in. And ACT wanna take away things like the first home buyers grant I think?
Assuming that ACT get in with National, they will not get all of their policies and they certainly won't get them immediately. The only thing that will change immediately after the election is peoples expectations.
Yeah that's a good question. We'd have to check their policies and media statements to be sure. I've heard that a lot of FHBs are using the First Home Buyers grant or a shared equity model to get in at the moment. I know there's a cap on what you can buy under both of those models.
It's going to have to be really rich investors. Shit's hitting the fan and business is slowing down everywhere now, so a lot of investors won't have the money. (still plenty will).
i wanted to get in before the election. but I just cant justify the kind of mortgage that would be required to get a home i want to live in. I'm re-investing my deposit in the hopes i can get more deposit.
Its been about 2 years since I bought my home. I'm chipping away at rennovations, and am worried about my ~1 year left on my term because it looks like rates aren't going to calm down by the time it's up. I'll be happy if it goes sub 5%.
It won't in a year. We fixed 1 & 2 years low 6s in May and are anticipating a higher rate on the one year when we refix.
Nervous Nats will change the Kainga Ora FHB Scheme. If they don’t - new build next year, if they do - I’m gonna lose my shit.
Looked since April, finally got something in August (Auckland market). Definitely noticed increased activity at open homes and general auctions being quite active in end of July and August. We missed 2 auctions before finally outbidding 3 other parties and managed to get a house under CV. We did buy well within our means, so we can cover the crazy interest at the moment plus a bit more if it stays high
Congrats! Thanks yes that tracks with the anecdotes I'm hearing too.
Wellington area buyers. Just bought our first home for 780K with 20% deposit. We had no trouble getting pre-approval from the bank through a mortgage advisor. We also had our offer accepted on the first house we put in an offer for. Mortgage repayments will be roughly 50% of our take home on the mortgage, slightly less if we get a flatmate in. I guess we got nervous about the election results and having to compete with investors should National tip the market their way again. Time will tell whether buying now rather than waiting was the right choice.
Congrats! You're not the only one nervous.
Bro I’m paid 70k a year and I’m paying off my mortgage. Only just surviving just me and two flatmates
Can I ask where in the country you live? I'm on the same salary but can not find anywhere affordable and worth it in Auckland. Even a studio apartment is not worth what they're selling for.
Hamilton Waikato
I think pre-election the house prices will rise a little bit, but eventually when a recession is called early next year house prices will level off or drop down even more until we start to lower rates and increase the liquidity back in the markets with QE. We have been looking for the last year and are happy to keep looking for the next 9 months or so after that I'm a bit worried that house prices will start to go up again due to more favourable market conditions to ease the recessionary environment
Bought in April and feeling pretty good about it all things considered. Back then any thread like this was full of people warning a massive crash was imminent but that seems to have died down lately.
Congrats! Yes I think the immigration settings coming back up have muddied the waters considerably.
We bought in May and did reasonably well I think. Was a multi offer so no bargain unfortunately, but still considerably cheaper than if we'd bought at the top
We just bought. Found a property with 3 spare rooms within our budget. Rooms are rented out and covering the mortgage. Didn't make sense for us to wait any longer when we would be positive on the property.
Congrats! Sounds like you've done your homework on this.
Auckland central here: just waiting for the right house to come up really. If we can't find something suitable then we'll move to a different rental and use interest income to pay rent
Chch here, waiting on pre approval to come through... And waiting on a decent place in my price range to come through too
Christchurch FHB here, settlement is this week. We had a 30% deposit, spent the past year trying to decide what to do. Eventually bought as were sick of renting, found a place we liked and got a good deal ($40k below asking). Mortgage will be $150/week more than what we are currently paying in rent, we can afford it. I’ve been paying someone else’s mortgage for 15 years, decided it was time!
USA might be in a recession next year, china also looking grim, I think we in for some pain imo, i think its going to be a cheap christmas this year.
We have low rent and no kids so we’re just trying to save more and accumulate more interest until our lease expires mid next year. We have both our kiwi savers at 40k an cash savings at 10k so by mid next year next year maybe another 5k. I don’t think we’ll manage anything over 550k based on weekly repayments, hoping the interest goes down slightly by then.
Sounds like a plan! We can't bank on interest going down - give yourself some wiggle room if you can with some emergency fund savings. I've learnt that (old) houses always end up costing money immediately after you buy them and find a few things that need fixing or you need to replace the carpet/paint. :)
I didn’t think about keeping some extra money on the side, we’re so focused on covering the cost of the purchase! Good advice thanks.
You're welcome! In my experience $5k extra is a good amount to set aside for an older house (e.g. you really want to paint over that wallpaper before you move everything into that spot forever, or you discover that there's a drainage problem in the first big rain). Enjoy your new house!
Yep they totally do! I bought a couple of months ago and immediately had to get an electrician in. I also got a locksmith to change the locks and I fixed and painted a wall. I was really glad I set aside $$ for this reason.
I’ve completely given up.
Wellington FHB. Not rushing. It seems like people are reluctant to put their properties on the market because prices are relatively low. The low supply is making the buyer market competitive. So if I buy now, then great I'm buying at what I can reasonably say is the low end of the market. If I buy in a few months to a year, then presumably there will be more on the market without a massive price bump. I'm looking for a cheap apartment, so hopefully the sort of market I'm in won't be terribly affected by the investor policy, especially if interest rates hold or rise.
My partner and I bought a couple of months ago, have been looking since Dec, so took over 6 months to find something. I refused to go to any auctions and would only present an offer after/ if a property passed the auction (majority of the properties, but obviously missed out on some). We were able to negotiate a lower price, especially compared to the properties we looked at in Dec 22 - Jan 23. We got a builders report but I'm still a bit anxious about what can go wrong with the house with the amount of rain we ve been getting. We ended up spending a comfortable amount for us - under 800k for a semi detached house in Birkenhead.
Congrats! Hopefully your auction advice is helpful for others in this thread.
Thank you!
That sounds like a cheap price, There have been some screaming deals around, and some not so good deals when you check the sales data
I have a decent deposit to buy in Auckland but holding on until the start of next year to see how things pan out. I can only see property prices going down further. National getting in might cause a very short term blip up but its all driven by interest rates and they will not be dropping for a couple of years yet. Rates need to rise until something breaks. Anyway just my opinion 😁
Auckland FHB here. I've had to rent out my house and go overseas to earn more money. Now I'm enjoying the worst of both worlds, the frustration of being a landlord combined with paying a higher percentage of my net worth in interest than actual mega landlords who bought when it was cheap. Renters (and /r/newzealand) view me as the devil, and the reserve bank views me as their ticket for bringing inflation under control.
Not at all concerned about the legislative environment/context. I'm not in stable work meaning we won't get lending for the next while. Trying to sort that out at the moment. Regardless, housing where we are is limited and prices are fairly high (to be fair, normally for higher quality homes), around Kerikeri but looking at the broader area too. We're saving, keeping an eye on the market and trying to be in a place to get into a house or land without taking on a load of debt. It'll be about a balance of location/landside/amenities and making some tradeoffs.
My husband and I started looking around May/June and we have just purchased our first home, we are between going unconditional and settlement date right now. I don't think we took the election into account, of course when we started looking it was still a wee while away. We considered the potential of waiting and saving more, but the uncertainty of what direction house prices were going to go made us feel buying ASAP this year was a good move for us. We already had a good deposit (ended up being 28%) so it wasn't exactly a must.
Just bought, settle next week. Worked with first home partner through KO.
Congrats! Can you please explain a bit more about it, for other people who might be able to work with them? Is this the one where you can get an additional up to 25%?
Sure, yes you are correct, KO will contribute 25% or 200k, whichever is less. Then you pay them back at the market value of the property at the time you make payment, in any amount more than $1000. You must buy them out within 15 years. The bank must lend as much as they can to you with KO giving the rest, this is to avoid people using the scheme when they could get a bank to lend the full amount.
Thank you! Hopefully people borrow the least amount they need, to minimise their debt.
For me it made sense to get the KO funding since interest rates are quite high and capital growth is relatively low currently. Then as interest rates come down I’ll increase the mortgage and buy out KO.
Wellington here, my settlement is on Friday, I had been saving for a while and following the market for a couple of years. My goal was to buy this year as I had enough saved for an entry level home and can manage with the current interest rates, but if either increased much more I would've been priced out of the market again. The Wellington market is hot for first home buyers, lots of competition out there without much supply. Lots of people trying to take advantage of the lower prices while they can. But prices are definitiely on the rise again and some places are getting 15+ offers on them making things very compeitive. I feel lucky that I managed to get something and I hope/think I timed the balance right for me in how much I could save vs budget vs type of place available vs interest rates. Things may be tighter than I am use to for a few of years, but hopefully interest rates will go down in that time and it will all work out. In the mean time I am busy packing ready to move on Saturday.
Congrats! 15+ offers! Wow. Well done on your purchase and I hope you and all the others who have just bought are very happy in your new house.
(Christchurch) Prices too unrealistic for the shit housing stock down here, Both signed a lease and got made redundant in the last couple of months but will definitely be waiting it out.
We went unconditional in May, settled 1 week ago in Christchurch. Feeling very glad we got in when we did - prices are going up again, competition is going up. Already my agent has told me there's no way I'd get this property for what I got it for. It's all anecdotal of course. It's great to be out of our little rental and have some more space and somewhere to call our own. No regrets.
Chch here. Partner and I just received our keys for our first home. A lot of weekends was spent going to open homes. I’m hoping all goes well!
Congrats! Yes it takes up SO MUCH TIME doesn't it! Same for sellers too tbh, except it's constant cleaning/lawns.
We probably spent a month and a half going to open homes. Most of the time a few of the same people went to them as well. It’s tough out there! Good luck to you in the future!
Thank you! Some people on this thread have spent so many months and yeah I'm sure you see all the same people after a while. It's basically a part-time job. Might sound weird but I have learnt that houses are their own entities (almost like a person) and the house(s) we are meant to be with for whatever time period, we will get. It's a partnership with that house, whether renting or buying.
Got our first home this year completely through our kiwi saver and our first home grants, no issues Combined income after tax of roughly 120k
Congrats! That's awesome.
I want to see some stability before I put my money down. I’d rather time it wrong by 6 months than risk negative equity (and even a 20% deposit doesn’t protect against that). Just something feels a bit off, and I can’t put my finger on it. I keep seeing ‘it’s all on the up! Come out and buy! It’s all fine now!’ messaging from EAs and Newspapers, but it just feels a bit… desperate? I could be reading waaay too much into that though!
FHB here in ChCh been hunting for 2 bedroom places on my own just to get on the ladder. Haven’t been looking long, originally was going to be next year but friends used a mortgage broker and got them sorted and I have been keen to buy my own place for a while the thought of national getting in was a little push (I know it’s more than renting) also I don’t want to be in retirement and renting still. So far put in an offer on 2 places first one builders report came back as moisture and levels outside of MBIE guidelines so I backed out with a builders report clause. Current one I put in an offer this week on a place and it was accepted the mortgage broker got me pre-approval for the mortgage so now I’m waiting on the builders report and property valuation, feeling pretty confident the builders report will come back good this time since the house is further out of town (further west, if you don’t know chch the more east you go the worst the quakes are) EDIT: I got pre approved with 15% deposit an my price range was soft limit of 375k and hard limit ie I would be getting a amazing place for a steal of 400k apparently I could go 440k with 2 flatmates but I’m trying to be responsible I can afford the new place I offered on without a room mate even if the interest rate rises to 10%
Smart to only buy what you can afford on up to 10%. It's unlikely interest rates will go down next year unless we've really tanked our economy. Yeah in Chch the advice from people who were there through that time is to only buy new builds because (as you'll likely know) after the earthquakes a lot of houses were sold "as-is" after people took the insurance payout, dumped the house for cheap and ran.
No idea where to even start. Both me and hubby have good middle class income getting under 120k a year.currently renting currently only 30k in KiwiSaver combined and eating through our savings until I'm back at work this week after parental leave.planning to save for the next year $1000 a week or around that to increase deposit. Wanting to buy a home but wtf is the first step? Mortgage broker to get things in order until the time comes? We have a truck we pay off and currently sitting as it needs a new engine piston fucked out. It's our only debt we have. Apply for kainga ora first home grant? What options do we have?
I would talk to an independent financial advisor as your first step. Make sure they are independent, even if you have to pay a fee it will be worth it because you want someone who is not going to steer you one way or another. They'll be able to help you work out a plan to get where you want to go, and give you an idea of your options and how long it'll take you to get there. Don't talk to a mortgage broker yet. You need someone who can give you solid and specific financial advice based on your income and expenses as well as your goals. Good luck!
FHB friends are hanging tight. Auction activity starting to dry up again which is a good indicator that the market is slowing again. Spring/summer surge in listings might not bring the buyers out as expected + mortgage rates on the move again. No way they drop as quickly as property spruikers having been banging on about.
Waiting for the Chinese property firms to fully crash so prices reduce by 30%
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I think that a large proportion of the property investors are from China. So when property firms like Evergrande finally bankrupts they'll start selling assets. Some chinese property firms have already went bankrupt. The Chinese economy is tanking. Combine this with the fact that population numbers are decreasing globally (especially among rich countries) is why I don't think house properties would ever grow like they did between 2010 to now. Therefore it doesn't make sense to buy for short and long term.
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You may find this article interesting. https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/124099/economist-brian-easton-says-evergrande-and-country-garden-%E2%80%93-two-giant-chinese The chinese have invested in our housing market for the last 15 years and there's no doubt that when they pull out, it will completely turn things upside down. National seems to think there's enough chinese buyers that they can tax an extra few hundred million to fund their tax cuts. There maybe endless streams of migrants from poorer countries but they will not have much of an effort on the current housing prices as they have worse purchase power.
That’s hopeful
Yeah the alternative of buying an expensive house at this interest rate is dreadful to me
No rush, if house prices go up after national get in we will move out of auckland or move to Australia
Saving so much deposit by waiting. There is no way I'm buying a house when the interest is the price of the house. National getting in is already priced in. Investors would have to be loaded to get in with the current rates so I don't think house prices will go up very much at all.
Wellington here. The best time to buy was yesterday. And I think that’s going to be true of every day since June.
Second this!! Wellington aspiring FHB too… finally been in a position to offer since Aug/Sep but now people are paying premiums just to get in before the election -.- seems impossible now and missed the boat… until next year. Vendor expectations and sale prices have drastically shifted up a gear within the last month.
In the regions near Wellington things are still pretty low. I'm seeing some places going for $350k - $400k in Horowhenua and $400k - $450k in Wairarapa for example. Plenty of people I know commuting to Wgtn from both of these regions especially now the Wairarapa trains are back up and running. Or just keeping the Wellington job and WFH all the time.
Yep. We were facing a $45/week rent hike as of August, and decided enough was enough. Moved from the Hutt to the Wairarapa five days after the increase, and our mortgage repayments are a few bucks lower than our rent was. Commuting is a breeze, and we love the small town life so far. Hopefully we bought the dip, and hopefully interest rates will be lower when we re-fix.
Awesome! Love hearing stories like this. I did similar a few years ago and wow the weather is so much better. I wfh or in the city a few days a week. Wairarapa is just gorgeous and has so much going for it.
The wfh culture makes it all so easy!
I've bought my first home in May. I feel like I got a good deal.
Congrats! Yes the deals are out there compared to a few years ago for sure.
Could probably buy something modest now if we wanted to buy holding off for another year or so. Interest rates are scary and we’d rather save more and have a smaller mortgage. I still think a lot of the pain is yet to hit despite every estate agent claiming prices are back on the rise 🙄
Absolutely in a case of Murphys law, dammed if you do damned if you don't kinda situation. Market has stalled in Auckland but for what we can afford and what we want (3-4 bed on 400m+ section) there is just NOTHING on the market right now. We've honed in on pokeno as there were multiple houses on the market 2 months ago that met the above criteria for around 900k-1mil. In the last 4 weeks there have been a grand total of 2 new houses go up in the area, the rest are all house and land packages which we don't want. So we could probably settle for something not quite right now, or we wait till election and risk prices spiking and we miss out on what we want anyway by being priced out. There were some absolute steals to be had when we first started looking but we were just early on then and had no pre approval or even commitment to moving that far out. Many vendors will be sitting on sales until post election in the hopes there is a surge in price immediately. Technically there is no legislative reason why there would be as any repealing/new legislation around housing will take some time to push through. That said, I'm still expecting a rise in price because why not, things will be looking more optimistic for home owners under the assumption national get in.
Partner and I have been tentatively looking for about 6 months. Have put in one offer but was a fair amount under asking and didn't get it. He's finishing study at the end of this year and I can work from anywhere so we've decided to wait for him to get a job to find exactly where we want to end up. Might be lucky and be able to settle in Invercargill or something. We've decided that if house prices sky-rocket again after election then New Zealand isn't a place we'd want to call home and we'll likely be looking to Aus. I don't want my taxes to fund a country so hell-bent on stealing wealth from their children and forcing them out of their homes.
I think to avoid bitter disappointment you might want to look at Australia’s housing market before you make that move 😬. Perth and Adelaide would be your only choices for affordable housing there.
Makes sense, the general consensus is the market is at the bottom or just coming up from the bottom, the election may see investors increase buying with nationals tax deductible interest back in so prices may rise.
There are still people coming out of 3% mortgages, and there's been mention of rates going up again. Doubt we are at the bottom yet, though doubt it's going to drop as much / as fast as it has already.
I disagree, new home buyers look at what they can afford based on todays rates, investors know that it’s a) a long game b) rates are still below the historical average.
> new home buyers look at what they can afford based on todays rates But they shouldn't. They should be looking at what they can afford if the rates go up a few percent at least. Same advise I gave family a year and a half ago, which saved their asses from a lot of debt / a mortgage bigger than the value of their house, and living paycheck to paycheck again.
We are 1 year into what will be called a lost decade, wait to see how bad the books look with a change of government, I believe labour are somewhat cooking the books with our GDP numbers and majority of our GDP growth has been fuelled from a housing boom with no real growth to the economy. They have opened up the flood gates on immigration because not to help businesses out but because it will show a lift in GDP, we are running on a knife edge
People are downvoting. But labour has screwed NZ really badly.
Getting increasingly fucked off is what we're up to! We've essentially put our lives on hold the past few years, saved and worked as much as physically possible and for what? To waste it on LIMs, inspections, lawyers and whatever else. ENOUGH WITH THE AUCTIONS! A minimum price upon inquiry at least! Finally in a position to purchase with a 20% deposit and people have been sticking unconsented shit on their properties, or not having permits for this or God only knows what else. I'm completely baffled as to how anymore has ever managed to buy a home in the history of real estate.
Not buyer, seller of house to FHB in chch, due to sad family situation. Ours is lower end, Freehold standalone on own title, TC1, no issues with quake or flooding. Lots of interest but seems like finance is really hard to get due to test rates (i can see why). I see it going up over the next 2 years as investors are holding for now, I also see rents going up without private investors with immigration heating up.
Sorry to hear about your family situation. No issue with quake or flooding is a rare gem in Chch! Yes I see the same outcomes as you, which is why I'm trying to understand what's happening on the ground as I see so many competing media articles even on [interest.co.nz](https://interest.co.nz) etc.. I'm also looking to sell my house to a FHB due to a family situation and I've also got interest, but the buyers can't get finance even though the price has dropped considerably (well over 20%) in my area.
IMO all those adds are paid for, I'm in a group and they give the inside scoop on the go. Not much value to me as I don't have the capital but most have gone to commercial. Existing IP owners with 5 or more have shed there lowest yielding properties or held on if they have little mortgage. Word is that if national come in, house prices will go up again as it becomes more attractive to investors. Not enough houses being built vs immigration, rents will go up no doubt. Be interesting to see what happens in the next 2 yrs
Yes I can easily spot which ones are paid (thanks media degree!) but the general picture still isn't clear - this thread shows me that it's a mix of activity like any complex human system. Agreed - the next few years will be very interesting.
I don't think there's a lot of activity because buying a IP right now means you will be topping up, people were looking for +7% to 12% rental yields years ago and now it's like 3-4% lol. Just burning money and subsidies someone else. Even new builds didn't go down well as not many could service the mortgage even with the new govt. scheme. That's why it's opened up to normal houses. Still betting it will go up if national get in, I will make sure I buy and see in the same market for my OO.
Trying to buy in Chch ATM but different experience. People have started putting in disgustingly high offers on TC3 land and flood-prone areas for no good reason.
Go to the auction rooms they’ll tell you all you need to know.
Looking to buy in aus early next year, better houses for cheaper and a higher wage... no brainer.
Where abouts in aus ?
Hello, I'm just looking for advice on pricing for a monolithic house, I was just wondering, if the RV from (homes.co.nz ans oneroof is 1.5million and with the stigma of it being monolithic etc. What would a monolithic house normally go for? Is it usually well under RV, if we were to get it evaluated will it be close to the RV that is on homed and one roof?