Real Estate ?bottomed out? and awash with buyers
By Jamie Melbourne-Hayward
Tommy?s Lower Hutt branch general manager Mark Coffey says there is a big shortage of housing stock at the moment. ?There are more buyers than there are sellers,? he says. The trend is confirmed at Northern Suburbs real estate branches, where the general perception is that interest rates are bottoming out, and house prices are stabilising and beginning their inevitable move upwards. ?People think it?s a good time to buy, interest rates are good and because of supply and demand there are a lot more people in the market to buy,? says Mr Coffey. He says the housing market falls and rises every seven years and has done so for the past 100 years. What made this fall so devastating was the jittering heights of the 2007 rise due to United States subprime mortgage lenders ?giving money away like there was no tomorrow?. ?The housing market led us into the doldrums of a recession and the housing market will lead us out. ?Aside from farming it is the biggest indicator of economic confidence in this country, it doesn?t have any ?real value? but it is about gauging economic wellbeing,? he says. The Lower Hutt branch is dealing with a lot of tenders as people bid off against each other. They had a ?backlog? of higher value properties a few months ago, but these have been sold and most of their movement is at the $400 thousand and bellow category. ?Compared to our house sales for this time last year it is unseasonably high ? the uplift is quite noticeable. ?In Lower Hutt we have three times the volume we did this time last year,? he says. New Zealand never let mortgage lending get out of control and ?will see a swifter recovery because of it?, says L J Hooker Johnsonville?s general manger Bruce Niven. The Northern suburbs are ?following the national trend? and also have a surplus of house buyers with people cautious to sell because of job security. ?People are hesitant because the market has bottomed out, and it?s crazy that some analysis says it will go down further ? they need their heads checked. ?It?s natural that the state will improve, all the Northern Hills have seen a life in the June-July period,? he says. Double Real Estate the Professionals in Whitby have seen ?a general confidence returning,? says sales rep Richard Ellis. ?Mortgage rates are creeping back up and the housing prices have bottomed out and are even slowly recovering,? he says. Mr Ellis says purchasing existing houses is still much cheaper than building new and they are seeing most of their movement in the $300-400 thousand bracket.
