Housing market

If you can find the perfect section then I would buy it and start building once you are back.

Put it this way, we sold our house 3 years ago.  We thought we'd rent for awhile and then buy again.  We are still renting!  We can't afford to buy ANYWHERE in Auckland, even with a good deposit.

Yeah I have noticed the types of houses dropping into our price range even within the last couple of months are getting bigger and nicer!

My worry about waiting is if it climbs up we'll get less for our money- right now (or within the next year hopefully!) we can buy exactly what we want for how much we can afford -at the current interest rates. If we wait until we come back and we miss the boat I will be so gutted! I think I would be more annoyed at waiting and missing out on the type of house we want and having to compromise (eg less bedrooms or living spaces or an older house etc) than I would be if we bought a section now and the price dropped another few percentages over the next year or so.

So if I get my own way, which I am somewhat prone to do, and we do decide to build- for any of those that have done it, what is it like? Do you recommend it? Any tips? I presume its very stressful and always costs more than you think its going to (well it does on the TV shows anyway ). Any recommended or unrecommended 'home makers- eg Jenian, Golden Homes, Signature??

I would also say don't buy a house and rent out, unless you can afford to subsidise the mortgage etc if you need to get one. It's quite rare at the moment to get a rental return to meet your outgoings on the property unless you have a huge deposit and therefore a lower mortgage. Just my thoughts....

And personally, I don't know that the house prices will come back up to the level they have been in the last year, within the next 2 years. The price of everything has gone up which means people are holding off buying because with the high everyday living costs, combined with high interest rates...it's just too tight for a lot of people.

Hi ya

I live in West Harbour - not much moving around here at the moment. Houses seem to sit around with 'for sale' signs out for ages - when we bought here 2 years ago they were going really quickly. It's a fab area and the local primary is excellent. In fact, I'd better go cos Cam has his second school visit today (he's been ready to go since 7.45!!).
Oh, and not too many sections avail around here anymore, it's pretty built up. If I can answer any questions about the area let me know.

Debs

With the way the world economy is going at the moment, that fact that we have hit peak oil and the price of oil per barrel has reached over $130, and the world demand is exceeding the supply already, the property market is going to suffer (as is the price and availability of food and other imported items). It's going to be a buyers market - for those who have the money. The average sale price of houses has dropped $20-$30 thousand below the asking prices over the last year, and are set to drop further. However, interest rates are also on the rise, and with the failure of some of the large US banks (where Australia and NZ get their loan money from) those interest rates don't look to be going down anytime soon.

I'd say that if your earning money outside NZ, hold onto it until the NZ dollar drops and your currency rises. Keep watching the property market in the area you want to move to and also keep an eye on the interest rates. I'd also advise against rentals, good tenants are a god send, but bad tenants can be a total nightmare and you can't do much about them once they are in.

Purchasing and existing house or building both have their bad and good points. I'd say purchase something existing though because the costs of building are increasing daily and you'll probably buy a house for a lot less then you could now build that same house - and renovating is much more fun then building.

Ok, that's my twenty dollars worth

Good luck

I'd say buy a house in BLENHEIM and move here

meh, he can commute...we have an airport

just watch out with building companies as a few of those have started to go under

I say buy now, there is that prediction out there that housing will drop and then climb again. But who says predictions are always right?!

After seeing my parents build (this was back when I was 10) and the fact that there house still has small things that aren't finished I'd never build (so the house is 13 yrs old) and there is also the hastle of having to get the place landscaped etc which I think lots of people forget about.

And with interest rates at the mo, ours is coming up for renewel and I was going to go with kiwibank being 8.99% but I managed to convince my bnz manager to beat that. So you can try that approach if interest rates worry you.