Once again the property industry beats its own self interested drum to drive sales. Its for a good reason that real estate agents rate lowest on all trust surveys - they use one month of data to reach all manner of conclusions... unemployment is on the rise and the effect of this is yet to be realised and the global effects of the recession are yet to be absorbed by NZ. Most major and credible financial institions are revising there forecasts for the 12 mths ahead down... do the sensible thing and wait, house prices have along way to fall yet and interest rates will remain low as well.

Good to hear that - hopefully the real estate agents do not start their trick games again by inflating prices to suit them or " going buying for them & then selling again" ripping off manby as they had done in the past.

To quote a well respected research company:...'New Zealand is on the cusp of a severe recession. A sharp rise in Unemployment, increase in defaults and plunging consumer confidence are expected to characterize teh next 18 months. House prices could fall by up to 30%, rattling national confidence.'
Isn't the Real Estate industry guilty of 'misleading conduct in trade', being a breach of the Commerce Act.

David, the unemployment risk is not potential, it is real (maybe not in your industry but it certainly is in many others). If you read the news they are firing people by the dozen every week, which for a small population like ours is a lot. Wishful thinking does not add much.

If people are being fired "by the dozen every week" and there's over 2,000,000 people in the workforce then 6 dozen fired is .0036% of the workforce every week! that's a whole percent of the workforce every 5 years!

What's more Statistics NZ is taking the same scurrilous line as the real estate agents with their stats showing a phenomenal housing shortage looming. Obviously a massive housing shortage will have no impact on prices when a 'well respected research company' has suggested they may drop 30%.

I'll admit it - I'm bitter. I've had my eye on a number of properties which have been on the market for many months. Was thinking maybe it's almost time start making low offers and suddenly they're all selling and I've got that horrible feeling that there's some confidence replacing the fear, which doesn't bode well for my bargin hunting.

Factual? Why then do they provide an invariably bullish commentary rather than just the facts? Why then dont they mention that the Februray 2009 volume was still substantially below the Feb 2008 volume (but they DO report the price difference between the 2 months - oh what a suprise because that bit can be construed as bullish whereas the volume data is bearish).
Re: unemployment - it is not dozens of jobs being lost every week, it is literally hundreds; in fact in the last 2 weeks it has been over a hundred EVERY DAY, see here:
http://www.interest.co.nz/joblosses.asp

Barfoots must be pretty worried as they have about 1,000 salespeople in 60 or more offices and in the latter part of any given financial year their top performing salespeople are paid 80% of the commission. See http://jobs.nzherald.co.nz/job/view/mv5fb1/

Given that the 80/20 rule means 200 of their salespeople would be doing 80% of the sales, cashflow must be very tight. They have grown their office network by at least 20 branches during the boom and must be feeling the burn right now.

I would not be surprised to see them close some branches or merge some together to save overhead although that would not be a good look.

A quick look at their website indicates they have increased the fees that they charge - in the case of a $1m home by about 20% so that’s an interesting development in recessionary times!

Hang on - 65% of that interest.co.nz recession job losses table is made up of job losses at used car yards as reported in the Herald based on a guestimate from IMVDA spokesperson. So outside of used car dealers something like 0.1% of the workforce has lost jobs in last 4.5 months. Oh the terror.

You doomsayers keep promising massive drops in house prices and it keeps not happening. My dreams of pickiung up a cheap house are fading.

Oh jee whizz, I wonder where Steve works!

B+T agents desperately need sales to make a $, end of story. The lack of sales volume is killing the income received by the many average sales person (the best will always do OK).

When sales volume starts to pick up gradually and consistently then, and only then will the housing market start to bottom out (read level off if you like).

Real house values will drop more, the many commentators fail to address the diminishing value of the $, so that even when house values remain constant the value is dropping in real terms. Hence a 30% drop in house values could be achieved by prices remaining static over 6 years with 5% inflation.

If you want some sound advice on housing listen to Bryan Gaynor, he has some very sobering and sound advise. Housing as an asset that does not provide a productive output will have to readjust in value (down).

NZers have binged on debt, and it is time to pay the piper.

Statistics can be made to say whatever B+T want, any blip now (sales increase in one or two months) is just a blip. Interest rates are coming down, maybe so that a mortgage is available at 5.5% for 2-5 years, but as things start to improve the OCR will increase again and mortgage rates will follow upwards, and that will keep the property market in check.

There are many of us who remember the late 80s to mid 90s, property was not a good investment over that time, and people will say the same thing about the years from early 2008 till probably some time 2011. If you have to sell, then at least you can buy on the same market. But why on earth buy now when prices will drop.

Look at the mortgage sales pages in the Saturday Herald, 3 pages!!! when that gets down to less than one on a regular basis there will be less "forced sales" and stability will return.

Wonder if B+T will tell us what the $1M plus homes were bought for last time they were on the market, probably not. It would show that the owners lost a decent portion of their equity. Better still, B+T could tell us the last purchase price and the mortgage value, that would really open a few eyes.

one swallow does not make a summer, has no one realsied that B&T have up their fees! Based on a $1.0m sale price it is up 20% not a lot of news on that one.............