Final bullet into a dropping property bull?

[The Great Gold Guru]

Four phone calls today from my $12.85 ad in the ODT. My new purchase ( settles on Mon. ) 3 bed villa in Maori Hill let to second caller who with her husband and two children have moved recently from Nelson. Plan on staying in Dunedin until youngest girl ( currently 9Yrs ) finishes at secondary school. Fell in love with the property as soon as they saw it, current owner very kindly showed them thru and they offered me a two year tennancy and $15/week more than asking rent to secure it there and then. No agents involved, total marketing costs for me $12.85 and a great tenant for the next 24mths min at $365/week. Sweet !!

[Arbitrage]

Maori Hill is a nice spot. Not surprising you got a good tenant. Sounds like a bit of upward pressure on rents too.
As for marketing, I find it is a 50:50 split between Trademe and the newspaper in terms of getting responses. However the advantage of Trademe is being able to put photos of the property plus a greater description of its features for a lot less money. This usually reduces the number of prospective tenants being shown through and sometimes results in possible tenants agreeing to take places without even visiting!!
Congratulations.

[JBmurc]

looks like I have a buyer for my sections 295,000 by the end of oct.
Where the funds will go-
Property-have my eye on another couple decent sections down south will not be spending much %70-%80 funds will stay in cash or good NZ shares(not into ASX- NZD to weak)
-like-
#1-NZO -great growth story unfolding here-maybe a .20% share


-Not overally keen at all to take on dept into NZ property, currently find prices even in Invercargill getting abit over the top driven by speculation of Oil boom which is still too many yrs away ,with the negative facts of the weak rental market there currently really making the 6-7%yeilds IF rented not to positive.

My #1 down south property bargins is ------Queenstown(were I'm based and have personal exp. in buying selling developing property)

I have seen prices stay steady and fall in some areas over the last 3yrs and now with 1000's of apartments planned to be built into the soft market place there bound to be some pressure selling over the next couple yrs till the NZ rugby world cup which should help turn it round my pick is under further rate rises Qutown apartments will be as cheap to buy as townhouses in Invercargill are,and I know where I'd rather have a rental property

[Arbitrage]

Todays news on section prices from the Sunday Star:

"Prices of sections and lifestyle blocks appear to be declining more quickly than house prices.


The median selling price of sections dropped from $180,000 in July to $150,000 in August, while the median lifestyle block price fell from $445,750 in July to $430,000 in August, according to the latest figures from the Real Estate Institute of NZ (REINZ).

That compares with the median dwelling price which bounced back up to $350,000 last month after several months of decline.

Significantly, some of the biggest price declines for sections and lifestyle blocks occurred in Auckland, Northland and Wellington, where demand for properties has previously been particularly strong and the market extremely buoyant.

REINZ rural property spokesman Peter McDonald said the lifestyle block market was largely driven by the residential property market, so any slowdown in house sales would flow into the lifestyle market.

Most people who bought lifestyle properties lived in urban areas and wanted a change of lifestyle by moving to the country, McDonald said.

"So their ability to buy (a lifestyle block) is affected by their ability to sell (their urban property)" he said.

"When you see what we've had over the last 12 months with interest rate rises every quarter and a lot of people now coming up for their two-year fixed rate mortgage rollovers, that puts a little bit of uncertainty and hesitancy there and you only need a wee ounce of that in the market to make people sit (in their existing properties) a bit longer. And that's what you are seeing at the moment."

This was reflected in the reduction in the number of lifestyle blocks sold from 1898 in July, about the same number as in the previous two years, to 1752 in August.

The biggest decline occured in the Auckland region, where lifestyle properties sold dropped from 361 in July to 309 in August.

Another sign that the market may be coming under a bit of stress, is the "mortgagee sale" signs which are starting to appear on lifestyle block and residential subdivision developments.

One of the largest of these is the third stage of St Clair Park Village subdivision at Te Atatu South in Auckland.

The development already has resource consent for 132 units and much of the preliminary site works have been completed and many of the lots have been presold.

But the developer, West Auckland Residential Developments Ltd, appears to have been caught by the collapse of the project's major funder, Bridgecorp. The development appears to have stalled when replacement funding for the project could not be arranged.

Another mortgagee sale which has been widely advertised is the last remaining lots of Tui Ridge, a small development of lifestyle blocks located about 15km from Cambridge. The two sites, on a 31ha block and the other a 7.66ha block, will be auctioned by Cambridge agents Ace Real Estate on October 12."

[miner]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/us...html?th&emc=th

[bambi]

It's hard to know if the houses really are cheap in the article Miner posted.

Prices are much cheaper than they were previously valued at but they were probably valued at the height of the market. The current prices still may not be the bottom.

I personally liked this comment the best:
“The market’s really low right now, so you can get a good price,” said Lori Crook, a food server at Keys Cafe who said she was looking for a place she could fix up and sell. “Even if you can’t sell it right away, if you just sit on it and sit on it, it will go up.”

Really low compared to the peak but perhaps not low compared to where the market is going.

[miner]

Yep no rush Bambi,only the first few domino's have fallen so far and they get faster as they go.

Cheers
Miner

[shane_m]

I looked at prices in ellerslie definitely not cheap 500+ for a decent house.

[The Doctor]

'BULL' is taking a long time to DROP!...still about 12/18mths away!

[ari]

About to place one property (Northshore) with Agent after 157 days on Trademe and 3250 hits.
Was offered $725k 10mths ago....now that at 8% would have certainly covered any shortfall....bugger!