May 10
Different times
Tidying up my office I found a Herald supplement from April 2008 called “First Home Buyers’ Guide”. I was looking at how I could afford a house back then so kept it for future reference. It is full of useful stories like the how Damien and Susan managed to buy their $600,000 house on a 100% mortgage by going via a broker; How buying an apartment can get you started on the housing ladder; And on the back page is an ad from Barfoot & Thompson with this great graph (house prices never go down) “if you were wondering if it’s a good time to buy”. I wonder what the figure for 2009 will be. It’s only a year ago, but it seems like a very different time.
May 10th, 2009 at Sunday, 9:42 pm
The big graph is still quite accurate for 2009, you just have to rotate the page 90 degrees clockwise.
May 11th, 2009 at Monday, 11:28 am
It’s just like the demand/price for oil
May 11th, 2009 at Monday, 12:41 pm
From QV.com …
Property values in the Auckland region declined by 10.1% over the past year (calculated over the three months ending March 2009 in comparison to the same period last year), deteriorating further from the 9.4% annual decline reported in February. The average sale price for the region decreased from $502,193 to 495,892.
Glenda Whitehead of QV Valuations said; “Anecdotally we feel that values are beginning to stabilise or level off. …”