MOSO

Hi All

As prices are still tumbling fast here in the UK we may need to drop our price AGAIN... Can anyone advise me what is happening to prices in NZ? They seem to be dropping slower than the UK, but there are plenty of properties sitting on the market for ages.

How much under the asking prices are people accepting at the moment? Does anyone know a way of finding out what properties are actually selling for?

The logic of the agents I've just been speaking to here in the UK is that people are accepting WAY under the asking price - but are getting the house they want cheaper as well so it really makes no difference - obviously this isn't an option for us - unless the same is happening in NZ. If anyone could advise what is happening to prices in NZ I'd be very grateful.

Browner_

May be of some help

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4842191a13.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4846713a13.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4855588a6005.html

MOSO

Thanks very much - long may it continue to fall! - it's reassured me that it seems as bad in NZ which I think is good news in a strange kind of way.

theduke

Depends where you are looking there was an article in th Herald on Monday saying that houses in the Auckland area have bucked the trend and have went up $30k in the year to Jan 09.

There is lots of talking about house value drops in Auckland, we have just bought and yes we got a better/bigger house on a superb section for less than we would have expected, but generally house prices don't seem to have dropped just stabalised.

We also own property in Scotland and it has not dropped in value either, but could not imagine how long it would take to sell if we decided we had to at the moment(but who would when the interest rates at 1%)

My advice is keep it and rent it out, for the now anyway!

MOSO

We're looking at Wellington. Unfortunately renting doesn't make financial sense to us as we were hoping to use the equity from the house to buy somewhere outright or with a very small mortgage and also finance the move - we don't want to be stuck on the other side of the world with 2 mortgages to pay if we have problems renting our UK house out. The house would only rent for slightly more than the mortgage (and the rental market seems to be saturated with as many to let signs as there are for sale signs round here) so it doesn't give us much leeway.

We've been stuffed by our neighbour who has gone into an old people's home so needed to sell fast to pay the fees. She was selling an identical house to ours but with no extension and in need of modernisation. She was on at £300,000 but has just accepted an offer of under £250,000 which makes ours look too expensive at £325,000. The estate agent told us we need to drop to £300,000 and look at offers around £275,000 - which I think is doubtful as the stamp duty threashold is £250,000. It's just isn't viable as we would make a huge loss and not give us enough to move.

We've decided to take it off the market for a month or two and try again later in the spring.

Batty

That's what's happening here. I work in the business and getting new listings at the moment is like pulling teeth with a pair of pliers!

I don't know if you are aware but properties here have a government valuation (also known as Capital Valuation) GV or CV and these are issued every three years. Most places have had theirs updated since September last year and prices can now be up to 15-20% below. This is the reality and all this crap about prices only having fallen under 10% is not correct. This is why we know that the prices haven't got much more to fall. Some houses are still getting CV price and above - good locations, great houses etc.etc.

This is a list of auctions from our company this week - the agent I work for sold 2 out of the '7 out of 12' and our cupboard is very bare now - truly the problem is lack of houses to sell so only time will tell what that means for the NZ market.

Wellington Residential 100% (5 out of 5)
Wellington Commercial sold 8 out of 11
Maritime Square City Living sold 7 out of 12
Gisborne 100% (2 out of 2)
C&I Greater Auckland sold 5 out of 13
Mt Eden sold 4 out of 6

nick333

MOSO, we are in Colney Heath and are also trying sell or at least rent out.
We have reduced from 350k to 299K and have noticed an increase in number of viewings. Have also put the house up for rent. have you crunched the numbers on an interst only morgage?. Have just gone with Harrison Murray for selling and frosts and daniels for letting.

Good luck with what ever you decide to do