Knightm

Politicians think 4 - 5 yrs max ahead which is election time.

The US economy is in shambles 'cos of the subprime prob. NZ banks didn;t invest in such instruments (from what we were told) though we are feeling the pinch cos less banks want to provide loan facilities to other banks thus making the interest rates we pay more expensive.

Asia continues to be more imp for NZ than US. The Asian crises some years ago has in fact sent the NZX down under. Fortunately, though the US market is massive, now there are other markets which are as imp.

But yes I agree if there is a recession , the issue is how to ride the wave.

NZBee

There are ways of claiming it!! I believe you have a few months to claim....you can always move back for a little bit...there are ways around it!! I will help you if you win

(you can take a girl out of Liverpool....)

bourbon-biscuit

I'll be honest, we are Very Concerned Indeed about our short-medium term future here. We've been having late night wonderings about whether we should sell our dream now and move into rented rather than risk negative equity or being stuck here (we have on-off toyed with moving to Oz to be near family in a couple of years) or just button down the hatches, hope for the best and weather the storm

If we were committed to where we are longer term and hadn't over stretched on the mortgage in the first place I'd feel more secure

Nerine

Difficult one to call, agency fees will take a fair chunk out of the capital too.

People are saying here that the demand for rental property will probably remain quite strong, so the same may be true for NZ. If you're thinking about moving on perhaps renting your house out may be a better option, providing you can cover the mortgage payments?

I was reading a report today speculating that property prices in the UK could fall by 20% but there's nothing yet to suggest that NZ or Oz are going to be as dramatic yet.

bourbon-biscuit

Ah, well- we've built *our* dream but can't say it's everyone's cup of tea and rents don't seem to cover mortgage even when it's a sought after location (we live in a rather remote area in a rather remote area, iyswim!), so that's not an option. But thanks for the input

Has the UK dropped by that much yet?

I seriously doubt Oz will drop that much. NZ economy is a whole other kettle of fish, afaics.

Knightm

if you can weather the storm is better.
after all, while property sales has gone down a bit, renting is going up anyway