After the vista, baby

Former Terminator and current Governator, sorry, I mean Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger is tipped to be building a luxury pad in Queenstown. It seems he has owned some land near Lake Wakitipu for some time, and must be picking that now's the time to build.

I'm guessing he won't be too worried about current home loan rates in New Zealand I'd be picking that this will be just a "cash job".

ANZ fixed short-term lending rates going up

The new ANZ and National six-month and one-year home loan rates are set to rise to 9.80 percent.

They attribute this to "fluctuations in wholesale funding costs". Grab me a Tui.

NZ house prices fall in February

What a surprise - the national median price is now $337,500 and if house prices fall again in March, then we will see house prices move into a negative annual percentage (according to REINZ).

Also an average of 50 days to sell a home in February, compared to February last year.

PM says property crash unlikely

Stuff reports that despite recent figures from REINZ pointing to a down-turn in the New Zealand property market, the PM says this contradicts the advice to her from Treasury briefing papers.

Propery sales were at their lowest point for seven years last month, and days to sell have climbed over the 50-day mark, and the median price has dropped $5 000 in the last month.

Helen Clark is saying a fall of 30%, as some are picking, is very, very unlikely.

Read the full article here.

ASB lifts interest rates

ASB has followed ANZ and lifted its fixed and floating interest rates by 20 percentage points. Their 5-year fixed rate is now 9.30% (the same as ANZ). Expect the remaining mainstream banks to follow suit within the next week.

Housing crash unlikely

While some commentators have talked of prices slumps of 20-30%, Bruce McKay over at his blog, The Analyst, suggests house prices will remain static over the next few years.

...house prices will enter into an extended period of minimal, if any, growth...my view is that there is scant evidence to suggest that house prices are about to “fall out of bed.

...

Part of his reasoning is that because the housing market in New Zealand is so illquid, it will take a long time for it to find its equilibirum.

I disagree, as if this theory were valid, then we could also apply it in reverse meaning the dramatic price increases of the last five years couldn't have happened.

Harcourts say volumes down but prices rising

The January issue of Harcourts MarketWatch newsletter shows January sales volumes declining in four of five regions when compared with January 2007. Wellington was the only region to record a rise in sales volume, with a 7% increase in January this year compared with January 2007.

However their statistics also showed average prices continuing to increase in all regions when compared with last year.