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31 May 2009: A Kiwisaver provision allowing members to direct half their retirement money towards paying their mortgages was flawed but necessary in the downturn, brokers say. Some are challenging the Government's decision, passed under urgency, to cancel the mortgage diversion clause at a time many homeowners are finding it hardest to meet their loan payments. read more >>

Provinces next to suffer

31 May 2009: First Aucklanders were hit by falling house prices, then the smaller centres. Now it's the turn of our farmers. House prices across New Zealand will keep falling, according to a gloomy economic forecast contained within the Budget. read more >>

Provinces next to suffer

Olly Newland: Mortgage nightmare

31 May 2009: The words mortgagee sale can strike terror into the heart of any property owner. A mortgagee sale can destroy families, businesses and lives. read more >>

$19m leaks bill for seaside tower block

30 May 2009: One of New Zealand's most controversial apartment blocks, the $65 million Nautilus apartment tower in Orewa, is the latest victim of leaky-building syndrome. Leak specialist Prendos has been called in to investigate problems at the 12-level tower, which dominates the beachside town. read more >>

Buiding lending slumps in April, but farm and housing lending up.

30 May 2009: Banks are reverting to a deep conservatism that values residential and farm land as much better security than anything offered by businesses, the latest Reserve Bank statistics for bank and non-bank lending in April show. These figures show banks are withdrawing loans from businesses as the recession drags on, despite signs many have cash-flow problems and need to surmount their own credit crunches to avoid job losses. Meanwhile, banks continue to pump cash into sectors that the Reserve Bank has warned are over valued and vulnerable to price falls. read more >>

House prices tipped to keep falling

29 May 2009: The Treasury's economic and fiscal update had a gloomy house price outlook, citing increasing unemployment as a factor putting on pressure. read more >>

SBS raises 5 year mortgage rate to 7.85%

29 May 2009: SBS raised its five year mortgage rate this morning by 25 basis points (bps) to 7.85%. This follows similar moves by ANZ and National yesterday, who raised three, four and five year mortgage rates by as much as 35 bps. read more >>

ANZ and National raise their longer fixed mortgage rates

28 May 2009: Responding to rises in longer term bond yields on wholesale markets, ANZ and National have increased their three, four and five year mortgage rates by as much as 35 basis points. read more >>

Housing again flavour of month

27 May 2009: Confidence in the housing market has improved in ASB's quarterly survey, with six out of 10 respondents considering it a good time to buy. read more >>

Big drop in prices for Shore houses

27 May 2009: North Shore houses are selling for much less than they did three years ago. read more >>

Mortgagee sales hit record high in March

26 May 2009: Mortgagee sales in New Zealand hit a record 15 year high in March, figures from Terralink International show. There were 201 sales during the month, up from 42 in March 2008 and the previous record of 191 in December 2008. In February there were 124 sales. read more >>

Housing confidence continues to rise, says ASB, but prices keep falling

26 May 2009: Housing confidence continues to rise, says ASB, but prices keep falling read more >>

Top Tips; On how to tell whether you have a good insurance adviser

25 May 2009: Kevin Smee, chief executive of Brokers' Independent Group, on how to tell whether you have a good insurance adviser read more >>

Syndicated property deals surge as bank deposit rates plummet

25 May 2009: Savers frustrated with record low returns from bank deposits are diving into lightly-regulated commercial property deals that forecast nearly 10% cash returns, but can carry significant risks. read more >>

City Suites are on the rise

24 May 2009: Older investors are helping fuel a resurgence in the inner-city Auckland apartment market. The sector is bouncing back after two years suffering from leaky building fears, over-supply and banks refusing to lend the same percentages on "shoebox" apartments as other properties. read more >>

ASB drops it's one year mortgage rate

24 May 2009: ASB, along with its subsidiaries Bank Direct and Sovereign, has lowered its one year fixed mortgage rate. ASB has dropped it 20 basis points from 5.70% to 5.50%, Bank Direct has dropped slightly less from 5.65% to 5.50%, and Sovereign�s rate has been reduced from 5.70% to 5.60%. read more >>

City suites are on the rise

24 May 2009: Older investors are helping fuel a resurgence in the inner-city Auckland apartment market. read more >>

April migrant growth could mean good news for property market, say economists

22 May 2009: A migrant-driven boost for the New Zealand property market is being tipped by economists studying new visitor arrival numbers released this morning. read more >>

Few choose to take mortgage diversion route

21 May 2009: Complex sign-up procedures and changes to KiwiSaver have led to little interest in a scheme which allows savings to be diverted into mortgages. Fewer than 1000 homeowners are thought to have signed up to mortgage diversion, which suffered a difficult birth with a three-month wrangle between the banks and Inland Revenue to allow it to go ahead. read more >>

Online Conveyancing launches it's new look site

21 May 2009: Online Conveyancing Limited, an Auckland based web company, has today launched its new Conveyancing Services Directory at www.conveyancing.co.nz. read more >>

Housing market 'may have turned corner'

21 May 2009: Positive noises coming out of the property sector continue to grow, with a further suggestion the housing market may have turned the corner. read more >>

Opinion: The case for a capital gains tax and a land tax.

20 May 2009: The introduction in the UK of a 50% income tax should not be copied here. In New Zealand prosperity is very dependent upon internationally mobile people, companies and capital, so any extremely progressive income tax is foolish. Moreover, about half the population does not pay net income tax, so the tax system could have flatter, lower taxes. read more >>

Budget the most important since 1984

20 May 2009: Next week's Budget is one of the most important in over a quarter of a century, says Treasury Secretary John Whitehead. Mr Whitehead, who has been directly or indirectly associated with Budgets stretching back to the last years of the Muldoon Administration, said next Thursday's was the most critical since Labour's Budget to confront the economic and currency crisis in 1984. read more >>

$60b wiped from house values

19 May 2009: The property downturn wiped $60 billion off the value of our national housing stock and $25 billion from Auckland last year, says an industry commentator. read more >>

Farm prices settle down after dairy boom, data shows

19 May 2009: The latest farm sales figures are good news, says the Real Estate Institute, despite Reserve Bank warnings of a price bubble. read more >>

TSB cuts 1 year mortgage rate

19 May 2009: read more >>

Martin Hawes: If you're going to build - now would be good

18 May 2009: If I were ever to build a new house, now would be the time as it seems all the stars are aligned to make it worth my while. read more >>

Scoring system in pipeline to rate houses

18 May 2009: Fridges have them, televisions have them, now houses are in line for rating labels revealing at a glance how energy efficient they are. read more >>

ASB cuts term deposit rates, still has not cut mortgage rates following OCR cut

18 May 2009: ASB has cut a number of its term deposit rates by between 25 and 50 basis points (bps). Short term and long term rates were cut, which contrasted with other banks that have either left their term deposit rates on hold or having lifted them since the 50 bps cut in the Official Cash Rate on April 30. (Update 1 includes Westpac and ANZ National comparisons.) read more >>

Home loan affordability worsens in April by the most in a year

18 May 2009: read more >>

State keeps building sector busy

18 May 2009: More than 25 multimillion-dollar construction projects are either up for tender or about to start. read more >>

Leaky building catchline latest sales ploy

17 May 2009: It's not the most obvious advertising ploy. But property experts are praising agents who highlight leaky building problems, while warning would-be buyers to investigate fully. read more >>

Optimism is short-lived

17 May 2009: People are already paying too much for homes in some suburbs, says property market analyst Kieran Trass of suburbwatch.co.nz. read more >>

Agency sales show Auckland rise defying house price trend

15 May 2009: A $60,000 annual price jump in Auckland house prices has been reported by New Zealand's largest real estate agency. read more >>

Farm sales weak in April after RBNZ warns banks about rural lending

15 May 2009: Farm sales in New Zealand remained weak in April, despite a slight pick up from the previous three months, data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) showed. read more >>

RBNZ's Spencer wants more competition in floating mortgage rates

14 May 2009: Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Grant Spencer said he would like to see more competition between banks in the area of floating mortgage rates, where margins to the Official Cash Rate were the highest he had seen. read more >>

Kiwibank, AMP cut 6 month, 1 year mortgage rates

14 May 2009: Kiwibank announced it was cutting its six month and one year mortgage rates on Thursday morning by 34 and 10 basis points (bps), respectively. Kiwibank�s new standard six month rate will be 5.45% and its standard one year rate 5.59%. read more >>

Housing gains spark optimism

13 May 2009: Signs of recovery in the housing market were welcomed by estate agents but greeted with scepticism by some economists. read more >>

Listed property sector 'starved for cash'

13 May 2009: The $6.5 billion listed property sector could need to raise $415 million cash or sell property worth $615 million, according to a Macquarie report. read more >>

RBNZ "disappointed" banks haven�t passed on OCR cut

13 May 2009: Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Grant Spencer said on Wednesday he was disappointed the banks had largely not passed on the last 50 basis point cut in the Official Cash Rate (OCR) to variable rate borrowers, including many who broke fixed rate mortgages to take advantage of the falling OCR. read more >>

Westpc cuts mortgage rates, floating unchanged

12 May 2009: Westpac has lowered its one year, 18 month, and two year mortgage rates, effective from tomorrow morning, but has again left its variable rate unchanged despite the 50 basis point cut in the Official Cash Rate on April 30. read more >>

Housing market stabilising as volumes rebound, median edges up, REINZ says

12 May 2009: House sales volumes were up nearly 40% in April from a year ago and the median house price rose slightly in April from March, suggesting the housing market had stabilised, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) said on Tuesday. read more >>

Property figures show battered market may be stabilising

12 May 2009: New Zealand's battered residential property market is showing fresh signs of stabilising, says the Real Estate Institute, which has released new figures showing median prices up in April and the average time taken to sell falling. read more >>

Rental Buys looking good

11 May 2009: As house prices and interest rates drop, buy-to-let property investment in some neighbourhoods is suddenly looking attractive again. For the first time in five years, there are places where you can easily buy a house or apartment, rent it out - and cover all your mortgage and property management costs with some money left over. read more >>

The property market - bottomed out?

11 May 2009: There are indications today that house prices - falling since late 2007 - may finally have bottomed out. read more >>

Real Estate: Rental buys looking good

10 May 2009: As house prices and interest rates drop, buy-to-let property investment in some neighbourhoods is suddenly looking attractive again. read more >>

ANZ National cuts 6 mth, 1 yr mortgage rates; cuts most term deposit rates

8 May 2009: National Bank and ANZ cut their 6 month mortgage rates by 34 basis points (bps) to 5.45% today, and one-year rates by 29 bps to 5.50%. This follows the 50 bps cut in the Official Cash Rate to 2.50% by the Reserve Bank on Thursday last week and is the first sign of a crumbling of the resolve of banks not to pass on the OCR cut to short term fixed mortgage rates. read more >>

Estate agents leaving industry

5 May 2009: Real estate agents are giving up on the industry, as the recession continues to make life tough. read more >>

Winstone wants to fill in quarry at Three Kings

5 May 2009: The owner of the 15ha Three Kings Quarry in Auckland plans to start filling in the site next year. But the suburban land's future is uncertain. read more >>

But wait, there's a catch with Mortgagee Sales.

4 May 2009: Analysis by PropertyIQ reveals mortgagee sale properties are snapped up at an average 16 per cent discount off their estimated market value. Research director Jonno Ingerson studied mortgagee sales from January 2004 until March this year and says 88 per cent of those properties sold below their market value at the time, while for regular sales that figure is only 50 per cent. That proportion selling below market value hasn't changed as the volume of mortgagee sales has climbed, and neither has the average discount. read more >>

House Market shows signs of Recovery

3 May 2009: A cautious murmur of optimism can be heard from some economists, property companies and estate agents: they are hoping that a slight upturn in house sales may herald the start of the recovery. read more >>

Property Listings fall, asking prices steady; Are buyers losing power?

2 May 2009: The number of new property listings on realestate.co.nz fell 21% in April from March and 34% from April last year. However, April traditionally has been a quieter month for new listings, realestate.co.nz CEO Alistair Helm said. read more >>

Analysis: What the OCR cut might mean for mortgage and term deposit rates.

1 May 2009: The 50 basis point cut in the Official Cash Rate to 2.5% may not be passed on to all mortgage and term deposits in the same way it has been in the past. It all depends on how the wholesale markets react to the Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard�s comments about future interest rates read more >>

New house listings plunge 34pc in April

1 May 2009: New house listings fell 34 per cent in April, but asking prices have remained stable says research from real estate website realestate.co.nz. It says the total number of new listings last month was 10,453, a fall of 21 per cent on March and a 34 per cent fall on April last year. read more >>

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