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I was surprised today to see the above words on the cover of a glossy magazine on Whitcoulls counter. Below the words was a lovely picture of Lake Hoods Lake House Restaraunt.

Interesting , I thought, so I bought it to have a flick through, and didn’t put the magazine down until I had read all 34 pages of the refered too article. Over 10,000 words all about Ashburton.

This really is a must read for any Ashburton resident and anyone thinking of living here.

The Magazine is called NZ TODAY (sorry I cant supply a link, it is not online that I can find)

The Article talks about the Authors 1 week stay in Ashburton and his discoveries of the area and its people. To say that the article is flattering is an understatement.

He disscusses the area in such a way that I want to visit there, and I live here!

He talks about our near zero unemployment, our ability as a community to make things happen (think lake hood, event center, etc)  He talks about the transformation irrigation has made to the areas farms. Our domain, and much much more

He also talks to prominant residents like our Mayor Bede O’Malley and  Peter Mac, 

He visits places like our Aviation museum, the Event center, our Art Museum, our Pubs,Lake Hood.etc…

The Praise this visitor to Ashburton gives Ashburton and its people really makes me proud.

The Article is peepered with fantastic photos of our area and should be on every coffee table for these alone

I highly recommend you buy this magazine “NZ TODAY” , the one with a picture of the lake house on the cover, and after reading I’m sure you will agree with the Author (and me ) that….

Ashburton is the best place in NZ in which to live

There has been a new website launched today “ZOODLE” that promises to empower the average Joe with key information on every property in New Zealand.

Zoodle is a joint venture between Realestate.co.nz and Terralink International and is well worth a look. The website offers a free report on any property and they also offer 3 paid reports that go into comparative sales data and other useful information. 

With Realestate.co.nz CEO Alistair Helm at the helm of this new project I anticipate this site to grow over the coming years to be a valuable tool for buyers and sellers, and although alot of the reports data is aready available to most Real Estate agents the area charts and data will keep many agents looking in from time to time as well.

So what are you waiting for click here to be one of the first to have a look

What a wonderful Christmas Pete and I had. We were fortunate enough to have booked some very early budget flights to Queenstown to see our eldest son Craig, daughter in law Paula and our two Grandsons, Marcus 30 months and Toby 3 months.

I must admit when we boarded the plan in Christchurch (7:30am!!!)  And were told the weather in Queenstown was marginal and we could be diverting to INVERCARGILL and busing to Queenstown I thought this is not what we had planned!!! But we did manage to get a gap in the cloud so all ended well.

After settling around a glorious Christmas tree and indulging in all the festive wine and food a walk over the old shot over Gorge Bridge was a must, plus kite flying. Boxing Day was spent at the Queenstown swimming complex; this is a must to visit if you are down there. Amazing. Plus of course more food

We then spent a very hot relaxing six days at Akaroa, reading books, biking and generally just blobbing out. A very enjoyable break, all refreshed, enthused and ready to tackle another year.

I am sure you have all had a great Christmas and I wish each and every one of you a happy and prosperous New Year.

The year 2008 has been a year of contrast, Both nationally and locally, The  run on property prices here in Ashburton has certainly stopped. In November around 3 % of the residential properties on the market in Ashburton sold all up a grand total of 15 sales, the same time last year 48 sales.

Similar contrasts are everywhere you look, at the start of the 2008 all you needed was a pulse to qualify for a mortgage, by the end of the year you now have to show that you don’t need a loan  before you can get one.

Oil has been at over $140.00 a barrel this year now around $40.00 a barrel and heading lower.

Diary farmers are bracing themselves for a predicted $5.00kg milk solid price compared to around $7.00 last year.

The global credit crunch has certainly changed the world and some would say that the world needed this reality check, property prices were over inflated, credit too easy, savings too few.

Housing affordability has been on the improve  though with the dropping interest rates and lower house prices which can only be seen as a good thing for first home buyers who at the start of the 2008 were giving up on the dream of home ownership as they saw house prices slip past that level their wages could afford.

Everywhere you look now there are very gloomy predictions for 2009, The tourism industry are expecting a drop in revenue, dairy Industry  the same, it really is quite hard to see which sector of the economy will lead the country out of the recession.

So by all accounts 2009 will be a tough one, not just for Kiwi’s but the whole developed world population.

If history is to be repeated there WILL be real estate activity at some time in 2009 as the investors, who saw this downturn and cashed in there chips well before the downturn re-enter the market.

For me personally 2008 has been a year of contrasts, Real Estate has been good to me this year, my sales are increasing , I have won awards for my work and I am getting a lot of referral work which means my clients are happy. but this success is contrasted with me seeing more and more vendors in a situation where they MUST sell which is not a nice position to be in when only 3-4% of houses are selling and it  is most certainly a buyers market.  

I see houses for sale in the paper daily that have little to no hope of selling due to them not being priced realistically for the market. The start of 2008  you may have got away with this at the end of 2008 this tactic is a waste of time. 

There are still salespeople out there buying listings with unrealistic listing prices and it is frustrating to see people fall into this trap, effectively guaranteeing they are in for the long haul.

I can only recommend to these sellers to get on board an agent that knows this market and how to sell in it.

As we head into this year of uncertainty I wish you all a happy new year, that brings you health wealth and prosperity.

Ashburton is currently experiencing a rise  in immigrants to Ashburton (I can see why), so I thought a post on the process of renting a property in Ashburton might be helpful to those people overseas planning the big move.

Most of the licenced Real Estate companies in town have rental properties on there books, with many of them advertising their available rentals here.   

When looking for a rental from overseas beware  the Internet photo’s. What quite often happens when a property becomes  available to rent, is the company will use stock photos of the property to advertise it. This is done to help protect the exiting tenants privacy as they usually don’t want photo’s of their house hold belongings on the Internet along with their address (can’t blame them really). But if the stock photo’s aren’t updated at the end of each tenancy what can happen is that the photos show how the property might have been 10 years ago as apposed to now, and a lot can change in 10 years . The question of, how recent were these photo’s taken and or do these photo’s still represent how the property is now, might be wise especially if you are looking to commit to a property without physically seeing it.

If you have children, most of New Zealand including Ashburton have school zoning. Which basically means that if you live within a school’s catchment zone then your children will have to go to that school. There are exceptions but it pays to check and do your own homework this site has all the towns schools.

A problem you will find with looking for a rental from the other side of the world is that when a tenant leaves a periodic tenancy (more on what that is later) they have to give 3 weeks notice and a good property manager will do all they can to re-rent the property out as soon as possible, so that doesn’t leave alot of time to pack up the house and get over here. 

Lets fast track a month or two or twelve and assume you have now landed here in this beautiful land of ours, your furniture will be here next week but you still have not secured a rental property what are your options? You could always do a little travelling before you settle into one spot, stay in a holiday park, motel or hotel but these options can become a little expensive not to mention the stress of knowing that your stuff will be soon arriving and you have no place to put it. It is highly advisable to develop a relationship with one or more of the property managers in town and in effect get yourself pre-accepted. However, you will still have to prove who you are before a property manager will hand over the keys to a property (well at least they should) ie: photo id, (drivers licence, passport), most will do a credit check / reference check on you. If you are moving over to NZ for work then it is always a good idea to see if your new employer will keep an eye out for a property for you, as they are in the country they can view the property/ies on your behalf, they will however not be able to sign up a property on your behalf unless they do it in their name/s, and this is because they won’t be living in the place therefore can’t / won’t want to take responsibility if anything happens to the property as they will be liable.

The average rent in Ashburton is around $260 per week for a 3 bedroom house. The total move in cost for a property at this rate would in most cases would be $1,300. Broken down this would be 1 weeks rent, 3 weeks bond (it can be up to 4 weeks), 1 week letting fee. However, letting fees vary from real estate company to real estate company and private landlords cannot charge this letting fee. The bond is monies collected on behalf of the owner as a bit of an insurance ie: if there is any damage to the property that the tenant can’t fix or doesn’t want to fix, this bond cannot be used as rent or as your 3 weeks notice at the end of a tenancy. IF there are no deductions to the bond at the end of the tenancy you will get the whole lot refunded to you, or transferred to another property if you are moving rental properties.

This bond must be lodged with tenancy services within 23 days of the tenancy starting.

There are 2 main types of residential tenancies in NZ

Periodic Tenancy

In a periodic tenancy agreement you are in agreement to stay in the property for no fixed time.

If you wish to move on you have to give 3 weeks written notice of your intention to leave the property to your property manager/ landlord, and your obligation to pay the rent ends at the end of the 3 week period.

Fixed Term Tenancy

In this agreement you agree to stay in the property for a fixed time. 6 Months , 12 months and 24 months are the most common form of these.

You are obligated to pay the rent on the property for the entire term of the fixed tenancy, and you can only cancel or shorten this term by agreement with your landlord, or in some cases an application to the Tenancy Tribunal on grounds of hardship.

Often agreement can be made with your landlord if a new tenant can be found and quite often you will be up for the cost of re advertising the property and liable for the rent up until the new tenant moves in.

It can be written into a fixed term that when the term expires it reverts automatically to a periodic.

In both tenancies you are bound by the residential Tenancy ACT (view online overview here)

The most commonly used in Ashburton is usually the periodic Tenancy, as it gives the most freedom for the tenant, however if security of tenancy  is what you are after the fixed term does allow for the property to be sold but you cannot be asked to move until you term is up.

So you have found your property and have a date set up for moving in what next?

Electicity

It is up to you to get the power connected, a phone call to the power company is usually all that is needed, although they can sometimes ask for a copy of your tenancy agreement. They will want you to give them a metre reading which will prevent you from paying for power the previous tenant hasn’t paid for. Your landlord will normally be able to direct you to where your house metre box is.

Phone/ sky/Internet

Also your responsibility to connect, you can ring these providers previous to moving in to try and co-ordinate connection times to minimilize the time you will be without.

Water

If on the town supply it is provided to the tenant free, there are no water metres in Ashburton although there are rumours they are coming.

If you are looking at renting a property on the outskirts of town or rural you will need to check where the water is coming from, which i s most commonly bore/well water.

rubbish collection

Once a week you can put your household rubbish out at the Kerb/gutter in front of your property for collection, the exact day varies from suburb to suburb. This rubbish must be in rubbish bags supplied by the council and can be purchased from the local grocery shops.

More on ending the tenancy shortly

(Disclaimer: When facts and figures are used they are approximate, if relying on this data please confirm it’s accuracy here )

It has been generally thought that  American house prices have little co-relation to our own housing market. So I was somewhat surprised to see in an article, on Bernard Hickey’s Blog on Interest.co.nz, that if you graph the path of house prices of America and New Zealand for the last 8 years and  then move New Zealand’s graph forward 16 months  there is indeed a very close co-relation, in fact they are tracking nearly identical paths. You can view Bernards article by clicking here.

This would indicate that our prices are still to come down more. Bernard reports that if this trend continues New Zealands median house price could hit $281,500.00 down from $330,000.00 currently, and down from a peak of $352,000.00 in November last year, A drop of 20%.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand seems to back this prediction by increasing its forecast fall in house prices to 16% from 15%, and now says there is a chance of a bigger fall. If these predictions turn out to be correct and our trend to follow America with a 16 month lag continues then it seems end of 2009 will see even more bargains abound. I tend to think the fear of missing a bargain will kick in with  investors around the middle of next year.

I also predict that this time next year more of the current predictions on the housing market and economy will be wrong than right

Real Estate or more specifically selling Real Estate has been going through changes in recent years as sellers and buyers have adopted new technologies to assist them in their real estate endeavours. I have seen differing surveys report that between 70% and 90% of all buyers start their search for a new property on the Internet. That’s quite incredible when you consider that a little over 30 years ago the Internet didn’t exist.

Google today announced the launch of a product called Google Street view that has the  potential of having as big an influence on the buying and selling of Real Estate as the Internet has in the past. (to go to Google street view click here)

This new product enables anyone from any where in the world (with an Internet connection) to view a property from a street view perspective. not only that they can take a virtual walk around the block to see how there possible neighbors live. Simply type in the address you want to see, click and you are there looking up at the front door. It really is a fantastic tool and one that will help renters and buyers greatly,especially those moving overseas.

The most fantastic thing about this new product is that it works here  in Ashburton, and it appears from some of the views that the photos were taken not too long ago. Google street view really is fun, you can spend hours looking up the different addresses you have lived in a see what they look like now.

www.realestate.co.nz and www.trademe.co.nz both now have street view integrated into there property listing’s maps. which instantly puts into the hands of any buyers looking at my listings the ability to take a walk around the neighborhood they want to move too.

Alistair Helm on his Realestate.co.nz, unconditional blog commented. “There may be concerns expressed by those who feel that this raises issues of privacy as every property on every street is visible from your couch – not just houses but main streets and beaches. The fact is of course all Google has done is all anyone can and has done for years – photograph a view from the street, the only difference is Google has collated them all and made them search-able in a massive global directory – we are joining a pioneering group of countries comprising at this time the US, Australia, Japan, Italy and France.

For the real estate industry this free service offers buyers and sellers a wonderful extension to the view of property for sale or rent – no more is the view of a property restricted purely to the photos presented by the agent. The enquirer can now clearly see the context of the neighborhood in which the property sits – ever closer to the rich Open-Home experience from your couch allowing you to rotate your view from the property itself to see the neighbors either side and across the street. This experience will enable more comprehensive evaluations to be undertaken in the process of property purchasing.

Naturally as a leading real estate website, realestate.co.nz has been preparing for this launch and has actioned this option within the spectrum of views accessible from Google maps on a listing – this Street View option compliments the satellite, map and terrain view for every listing profiled on the website for which we recieve an address from the agent acting on behalf of the agent. For information we currently recieve an address for close to 99.6% of all properties, however agents only confirm that around 62% of all their properties can be presented with a displayed address, this grows week by week, yet means that over 30,000 of the more than 80,000 residential and lifestyle listings are featured on this website without an address.”

See the rest of Alistair’s Article here

Love google or hate them you have to give credit for innovation.

One thing to come out of this world wide economic downturn is that a few bargain price properties are starting to pop up.
It had to happen, First home buyers have been hit with many banks raising the bar by tightening there lending requirements and often expecting 20% deposits.

Property investors are also sitting back trying to guess the bottom of the market, This takes a huge section of buyers out of the market putting downward pressure on prices, especially the lower end of the market where these two groups tend to buy.
It was only a year ago that a search on www.realestate.co.nz for properties in Mid Canterbury under $200k bought up a handful of properties, The same search now results in over 70 properties.
One such property drew the attention of our local paper “The Ashburton Guardian”. The property mentioned is one of my listings that I think represents incredible value. You can view the property (click Here).

Following is the Ashburton Guardian article

“They’re not the Ritz, but the price is most definitely right. 

There are at least two properties on the market in Ashburton that could be the answer to a first home owner’s prayers.
For the first time in possibly years, the bottom end of the market has fallen to a level that puts buying a home within reach of more wage earners, even with a 20% deposit.
First National has a cottage on the west side of town that falls into the ‘definitely affordable’ bracket.
Sales consultant Margaret Wilson described it as a good first home, with more heating options than many in a much higher price range – heat pump, night store and log fire.
“It’s two-bedroomed and has a nice kitchen with a tidy, small section. It’s a half section but it’s well fenced and there is room for kids.”
The house most definitely had potential, Mrs Wilson said. In spite of the price tag, the property had not generated as much interest as anticipated, she said. “People might want a lot for their dollar, but if you can start out with a $158,000 property instead of $220,000, it’s much quicker to become debt free.”

You can view the rest of the article (click here)

Following problems in the sub-prime lending market in the US , uncertainty has now hit Japan . In the last seven days, Origami Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches. Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived, crashed & burned. Furthermore, 50 staff at Karate Bank have got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank, where staff fear they may get a raw deal.

Two women were walking through the woods when a frog called out to them and said: “Help me, ladies! I am a real estate agent who, through a curse, has been transformed into a frog. If one of you will kiss me, I’ll be returned to my former state!”

One woman took out her purse, grabbed the frog, and stuffed it inside her handbag. The other woman said, “Didn’t you hear him? If you kiss him, he’ll turn into a real estate agent!”

The second woman replied, “Sure, but these days a talking frog is worth more than a real estate agent!”

Q Whats the capital of Iceland?

A About $3.50

Q; How many central bank economists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 
A: Just one — he holds the lightbulb and the whole earth revolves around him.

A party of economists was climbing in the Alps . After several hours they became hopelessly lost. One of them studied the map for some time, turning it up and down, sighting on distant landmarks, consulting his compass, and finally the sun. 
Finally he said, ‘ OK see that big mountain over there?’ 
‘Yes’, answered the others eagerly. 
‘Well, according to the map, we’re standing on top of it.’

The United States have developed a new weapon that destroys people but it leaves buildings standing. It’s called the stock market.

A real estate agent was dismayed when a brand new real estate office much like his own opened up next door and erected a huge sign which read ‘BEST AGENTS.’ He was horrified when another competitor opened up on his right, and announced its arrival with an even larger sign, reading ‘LOWEST COMMISSIONS.’ The agent panicked, until he got an idea. He put the biggest sign of all over his own real estate office. It read: ‘MAIN ENTRANCE’

Have you heard a good joke lately?  just click on comments  and post away.

With all the statistics being thrown around by the media to explain the state of the market lately, and the fact that I want to start posting real estate statistics here on the blog,  I thought it might be prudent to have something on the blog to help explain these statistics and how they are formed and used.

I stumbled on a great little article posted by Del Mar Real Estate in America that I thought explains the differences well, I have made a few changes to  make it New Zealand relevant  you can view the original article (here )

Any statistician will tell you how easy it is to manipulate numbers.  As a Real Estate sales person , I can attest to the fact that one can present data (i.e. results from one’s research) to support either side of an argument.  Tell me what you want to demonstrate, and I’ll find a way to present the numbers to back up that claim.

Housing Stats in the Media

These days, we are being inundated by reports in the media about the housing crisis.  One hears about

• the increasing numbers of Mortgagee sales.
• the decreasing total numbers of sales, or “units”
• the decreasing home values in various markets

I’m no statistician, but I am aware of how misleading numbers can be.  Here are some  cautionary thoughts.

The Importance of Normalizing

When referring to numbers increasing or decreasing, I always wonder how careful the reports were in normalizing the numbers.  In other words, if 10 houses went into foreclosure in a given market A, while only one did in 2005, one has to know whether are still the same total number of homes in market A.  One foreclosure out of 500 homes vs 10 foreclosures out of 1000 homes is not a 10 fold increase, but a five fold one.

The Difference between Average and Median Sold Price

Some seem to use the terms interchangeably.  Some suspect there’s a difference but don’t know what it is.  The median sold price means the middle value in a set of prices arranged in increasing order, i.e. the middle price in a batch of home prices, where half are higher than this number, and half are lower.  To calculate the average, all sold prices are added together into a sum, and the sum is then divided by the number of houses that sold.  Which is more relevant?  The median, because it tends to neutralize aberrant homes that fall way off the curve.  For example, if 4 tract homes sold for $490k, 495k, 505k, and 510k, and one unusual custom home in that neighborhood sold for $750k, the average sales price would be $550k, while the median would be $505k, which is much more representative of the values in the neighborhood.

Generalizing from Changes In Median Price

Even when using the more representative median, I am often blown away by the assumptions people make when looking at shifting trends in home prices.  If the median price in a given neighborhood went from $800k in 2005 to $600k in 2008, it does not necessarily mean that prices declined by $25%.  A different explanation could be that in 2005, the largest floor plan was selling the most frequently, while now, the smallest floor plan is the most popular seller.  The same is true when we hear stats of a whole city or community.  Though the median home price may look like it has gone down, perhaps this decline is simply a reflection of the fact that more of the lower end, entry level homes are selling now, the tear downs and fixer uppers.  The real question is whether the price a specific given home would have sold for in 2003 is different from what it would sell for in today’s market.

The Bottom Line

I am not trying to argue that home values have not declined here in Ashburton, but simply to say that we need to take these stats with a grain of salt.  As I mentioned, the numbers can be presented in such a way as to support any agenda.  For the media, negative stories sell!  That’s a pretty powerful agenda…