News articles

Banks' tougher lending rules in tune with economic times

30 Nov 2008: It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, as the saying goes. Homeowners with big mortgages must have been reflecting on the truth of that dictum in the past few weeks. read more >>

NBNZ: Next 12 mths will be hardest for NZ in 20 years

28 Nov 2008: The National Bank said it expects the next 12 months to be the most challenging in more than two decades after releasing the results of its November 2008 Business Outlook survey. read more >>

Bank move makes it harder to buy a home

28 Nov 2008: New Zealand's largest banking group has doubled its minimum mortgage deposit, leaving would-be homebuyers needing to find tens of thousands more before buying. read more >>

Big Auckland property deals slump 87pc

27 Nov 2008: Multimillion-dollar Auckland investment property deals have come to a crashing halt. read more >>

ANZ National tightens mortgages - 20pc deposit needed

27 Nov 2008: ANZ National, the largest bank in New Zealand, is requiring people buying a house to have a 20 per cent deposit. read more >>

Cash flooding into guaranteed finance companies as bank deposit rates fall below 6%

27 Nov 2008: The few finance companies who have left their interest rates close to 10% after receiving the government guarantee are receiving a wall of cash from savers disappointed that bank term deposit rates are falling below 6%. read more >>

Most high-flyers hold on to homes

27 Nov 2008: Rich New Zealanders are holding tight to their flash homes despite the credit crunch putting pressure on cash-strapped investors. read more >>

Auctions increasingly used to end housing Mexican standoff

26 Nov 2008: Auctions are becoming much more prominent in the current uncertain housing market, being used more widely as a way to end the ‘Mexican standoff’ in the market between bargain hunting buyers and stubborn sellers and giving a clearer picture of where real prices are sitting. read more >>

Agency auctions 79 properties in one of busiest weeks yet

26 Nov 2008: Auckland's largest agency Barfoot & Thompson has had one of its busiest auction weeks. read more >>

Plenty of razzle-dazzle but few buyers

26 Nov 2008: They came, they watched, and most left again without buying a thing in what was touted as the country's largest ever residential property auction yesterday. read more >>

Mega-auction fights slump

25 Nov 2008: One of the country's biggest event centres will today host a bulk real estate auction as house sellers fight the depressed property market. read more >>

Interest rates tumble in face of financial crisis

25 Nov 2008: Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard is expected to hack more than 1 per cent off the official cash rate next week in an attempt to bring down interest rates and revive the flagging economy. read more >>

Savvy developers still buying up large

24 Nov 2008: While the sale of land and redevelopment sites has been significantly affected by a tighter funding market, there are still good land sales being made says Chris Bayley, Bayleys Real Estate's commercial and industrial general manager. read more >>

Bernard Hickey: Mortgage pain on the rise

24 Nov 2008: There is one sure way to capture the mood of the real estate market and economy right now. read more >>

Tax cuts and pay rises make homes more affordable in Oct

24 Nov 2008: Tax cuts, strong wage growth and lower interest rates have combined to improve housing affordability to its best level since May 2006, says new research. read more >>

BNZ goes below 7 per cent mortgage barrier

24 Nov 2008: BNZ is throwing down the gauntlet to other banks in slashing its lowest mortgage rate today to below 7 per cent. read more >>

From $40k to $4m....

23 Nov 2008: When antiques dealer John McClenaghan bought an Auckland kauri mansion for a paltry $40,000, he wouldn't have known that, six years later, he would be selling it - for about $4 million. read more >>

Mortgage rates keep falling - ANZ National and ASB join the party

22 Nov 2008: ANZ National Bank and ASB are cutting their floating mortgage rates to 8.7 per cent from 9.45 per cent. read more >>

Agents feel effect of market in doldrums

21 Nov 2008: The volume of unsold houses in the country's northern region is rapidly rising and prices are taking a hammering. read more >>

Kiwibank slashes variable mortgage rate to 7.95%

21 Nov 2008: Kiwibank has cut its variable mortgage rate to 7.95% from 8.7% following Westpac’s variable and fixed mortgage rate cuts earlier on Thursday, when Westpac briefly matched Kiwibank as having the lowest variable mortgage rates. read more >>

Rental listings spike as exams finish; mortgagee sales jump

20 Nov 2008: Signs of stress in the property rental and property sales markets continued to flow through in the first two weeks of November as an exodus of students after university exams increased rental listings and mortgagee listings jumped to a fresh record above 500. read more >>

Developer to unveil Carlaw Park village plan

20 Nov 2008: Details of plans for a new $120 million retirement village in Parnell are being unveiled today. read more >>

Property investors urged to diversify

20 Nov 2008: Investors in the listed property sector can expect falling returns and are being advised to diversify for tougher times. read more >>

Harcourts' property sales down last month

20 Nov 2008: The number of properties sold by Harcourts was down sharply on year ago figures but the real estate agent is hopeful of a pick up in the property market. read more >>

Mortgage rates on their way down - Kiwibank joins in

20 Nov 2008: Mortgage rates are on the way down today, with two banks - Westpac and Kiwibank, cutting rates in anticipation of another Official Cash Rate cut. read more >>

ASB, Westpac, ANZ, BNZ now see OCR cut 100 bps on Dec 4

19 Nov 2008: read more >>

Builder unimpressed with choice of Williamson

19 Nov 2008: Commercial landlords are pleased with the new Cabinet lineup but a big house builder is not. read more >>

Cash rate could go to lowest level ever

18 Nov 2008: The official cash rate could fall to a record low of 4 per cent as the economic outlook worsens and inflation fears fade, forecasters say. read more >>

LINZ Publishes its 2007/08 Annual Report

18 Nov 2008: The LINZ 2007/08 Annual Report has now been released and is available to download: read more >>

Finance shortfall 'hurting farm sales'

18 Nov 2008: A shortage of funds for borrowing is hurting farm sales, says the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand. read more >>

Step on to the landlord ladder with Housing NZ

18 Nov 2008: For thousands of inexperienced investors burned by Blue Chip and similar property schemes, the words "guaranteed rent" sound alarm bells. read more >>

Opinion: Banks delay inevitable mortgage rate reductions

18 Nov 2008: The 2-year wholesale swap interest rates are now at 5.50%, with the moneymarkets pricing in another 1.00% OCR cut on the 4th of December and some more after that in the first half of 2009. read more >>

House sales plummet by record amount

18 Nov 2008: House sales volumes fell by a record amount in the first half of 2008, a report by economic consultants Infometrics shows. read more >>

$1 Reserve risky but effective

17 Nov 2008: An Auckland property auctioned with a $1 reserve last month attracted a lot of media attention, both before its sale and afterwards when the vendor disappeared on the buyer. read more >>

Quotable Value costing vendors out of market

17 Nov 2008: House vendors using Quotable Value to set their selling price are being warned they risk costing themselves out of the deflated market. read more >>

CBA warns, but confident ASB provisions lower than most.

16 Nov 2008: Commonwealth Bank of Australia has warned of significantly higher provisions for bad debts because of the collapses of ABC Learning, Allco and Lehman Brothers, but says it is confident the credit quality in its ASB operation is better than the average of its peers in the New Zealand market. read more >>

BNZ securitises NZ$6.5 bln of mortgages; RBNZ drains NZ$700 mln

15 Nov 2008: The BNZ has joined ANZ National and Westpac in building a Residential Mortgage Backed Security (RMBS) facility that can be used as collateral to borrow from the Reserve Bank. read more >>

House prices rise in many suburbs

15 Nov 2008: The 10-year rollercoaster of Auckland house prices has turned into a downward spiral for many areas - but others are on the rise. read more >>

Housing market shows signs of picking up

14 Nov 2008: House prices in Auckland and nationally are up and agents say a rosier picture of the market is finally beginning to emerge. read more >>

Largest listed real estate entity posts $31m loss

14 Nov 2008: Falling property values have pushed New Zealand's largest listed real estate entity into the red, with Kiwi Income Property Trust announcing a $31.3 million after-tax loss. read more >>

High priced houses held up REINZ median price in October

14 Nov 2008: Higher priced houses held up the median sale price for residential property in New Zealand in October, but volumes remain very weak. The number of houses sold nationally fell to 4,469 in October from 4,499 in September and were down a third on October last year, figures from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) show. read more >>

Public Trust loses NZ$32.1m, partly on mortgage provisions

13 Nov 2008: Public Trust announced a NZ$32.1 million loss for the year ended June 30 2008, citing unrealised investment losses of NZ$21.6 million and mortgage provisions of NZ$12.4 million in a difficult investment climate and a deteriorating property market. read more >>

'Don't rely on home to fund retirement'

13 Nov 2008: New Zealanders need to stop thinking of their homes as a retirement savings plan and start engaging more with their superannuation savings, the head of Australia's superannuation industry body says. read more >>

National broom to sweep into housing

12 Nov 2008: The new Government appears likely to keep real estate agent laws introduced by the previous regime but is aiming to make big changes to other property rules. read more >>

ANZ National applies for Deposit Guarantee; Marac approved

12 Nov 2008: ANZ National said it had lodged its formal application for inclusion in the government’s Deposit Guarantee Scheme. It is the last of the big banks to apply to join the scheme. read more >>

Mortgagee listings surge to new record and rental listings jump

11 Nov 2008: Mortgagee listings on realestate.co.nz and trademe.co.nz surged 10.6% to a record 489 in the week to November 10 from the previous week, and are up 25.1% from a month ago, our weekly survey has found. read more >>

Property prices dip 6.8 per cent in year

10 Nov 2008: Residential property prices fell 1 per cent in October, taking the annual decline to 6.8 per cent, according to QV Valuations. read more >>

First finance company with crown guarantee

10 Nov 2008: The Reserve Bank has approved the first non-bank institutions for the Deposit Guarantee Scheme. read more >>

New TopSpots Reports

10 Nov 2008: ASB's iwantahome.co.nz property information site is committed to providing home buyers with useful information and tools to help make the process of owning a home as easy as possible. As part of that commitment, ASB has commissioned Barbican Publishing to conduct a series of TopSpots reports. read more >>

Bernard Hickey: Now there's work to be done.

9 Nov 2008: The winners of this weekend's election must answer some big questions being asked by investors and borrowers. Here are the top five questions as I see them: read more >>

Dinosaurs.....And we KNOW the comet is coming!

8 Nov 2008: Pearse Kinchella, Real Estate Agent of Wanganui and Richard Galbraith, Internet Entrepreneur of Auckland share views on the role of the internet in the Real Estate Industry and Conveyancing Sectors. read more >>

Why our banks are safer than US banks

7 Nov 2008: The shocking events of the last week on global financial markets have forced many savers in New Zealand to question the safety of their banks. This nervousness is only natural when well known and apparently impregnable institutions such as Lehman Bros, Merrill Lynch and AIG disintegrated in a cloud of toxic debt and investor panic within days. read more >>

Real estate company becomes victim of housing slump

7 Nov 2008: The slump in house sales has taken its toll on one of Auckland's largest real estate businesses. read more >>

100% e-Lodgement Approaching Fast

7 Nov 2008: The move to 100% electronic lodgement for titles transactions is nearly complete, a shift that has seen the time taken for registering the vast majority of land transactions reduced from days to seconds. read more >>

Banks bet on 50pt cut in cash rate

6 Nov 2008: The money markets believe governor Alan Bollard will match the Reserve Bank of Australia's 75-basis-point cut when he reviews the official cash rate on December 4, but some economists are not so sure. read more >>

BNZ and ASB now government guaranteed banks

6 Nov 2008: Bank of New Zealand has joined ASB in being approved by the Treasury under the government's retail deposit guarantee scheme. Westpac is understood to have applied earlier this week. There is no word yet on ANZ National's status. read more >>

Settling into your new home

5 Nov 2008: Take a look through our top ten tips to make the transition to your new abode a smooth one. read more >>

Rating Valuations Rules Reviewed: Expert Committee Process Brings Industry Together

4 Nov 2008: There are no dramatic changes in the Rules governing the way rating valuations are carried out, but those who put them into practice will find a sleeker, more clearly defined and better constructed document when the reviewed rules are implemented next year. read more >>

Banks: We will help struggling borrowers

3 Nov 2008: Banks have promised to relax mortgage repayment conditions for struggling home-owners as part of a deal with the Government guaranteeing their overseas debts. read more >>

Lenders make it much harder

2 Nov 2008: Want to raise a mortgage in these dark financial days? Bank vaults are still full of money and most sound keen to lend it. read more >>