Archive for June, 2009
Mortgagee sales continue to rise in April
Filed under: Blog, Terralink Mortgagee Sales Report Responses: 2 Comments
The latest report from Terralink shows that mortgagee sales in the month of April reached an new peak of 251.
This figure compares to the March figure of 201 and the April 2008 figure of 90. The graph below graphically demonstrates the rise of mortgagee sales across NZ over the past 15 years with the clear perspective of the most recent rise as compared to the levels at the turn of the decade.
The total of 251 mortgagee properties represents 4% of the total sales for the month of April as reported by the Real Estate Institute. This is a considerable rise in the representation of mortgagee sales as a portion of all sales. The first 4 months of 2009 has seen the total of mortgagee sales (726) represent 3.3% of all sales reported by the Real Estate Institute over that first 4 months (21,838), comparing that with prior years gives a very clear representation of the relativity of mortgagee sales within the overall mix of residential sales.
The majority of mortgagee sales consistently remain in the major metropolitan areas of the country. Nearly two thirds of all mortgagee sales were recorded in the 3 main cities, this is a significant increase from 48% a year ago. There are no data available to show the representation of sales by type or property so as to ascertain the make up of apartments as compared to houses. The regional split of sales is represented in the charts below:
Tags: mortgagee
What exactly did they buy?
Filed under: Blog Responses: 2 Comments
Could this happen to a house you buy?
It looks as though a North Shore couple didn’t get what they expected when they bought a home at a mortgagee sale. It looks as though after they viewed the property a lot of the chattels were repossessed. Now trying to read between the lines of the article it looks as though this was expected but the state in which the house was left was not. The fact that it was a mortgagee sale should not give the vendor rights to leave the house in a damaged state. My guess is that the repossessing agents simply came in and took what was (rightfully) theirs but at the same time damaged property that they had no right to.
I would love to see the people front up who did the damage and explain themselves. I would also like the agent to take a more proactive role in helping the buyers – It seems from the comments that it was buyer beware:
Harcourts agent Jackie Mark said she sold the home and was disappointed about what had happened. But people should take care when buying mortgagee-sale properties, she warned.
I’m hoping that these were comments taken out of context. I’m not sure what care the buyers could have taken? Do you pay for security gaurds to monitor the property 24/7 form the minute you sign the agreement until you move in?
NZRAB Launches “Find a Former Architect Service”
Filed under: Blog Responses: 0 Comments
The New Zealand Registered Architects Board (NZRAB) has just launched a new service which allows you to search for former architects. NZRAB Chairman Ron Pynenburg commented:
“The NZRAB for years has been receiving complaints about real estate advertisements that name the person who designed the house as an architect when in fact he or she is no such thing. This can push up the price or create a false expectation about quality, which is unfair on buyers.”
“One excuse for this false advertising has been that sellers can’t work out if the designers’ names on the plans or in the council records of older houses were or were not architects.”
I see this as quite a good move from the NZRAB. Now I’m not saying that only architects design good homes or that all homes designed by architects are great but there is something to be said for stepping into a home designed by an award winning architect. The AAA tour last weekend was a great example of what the profession can bring to the table in terms of design.
My only criticism of the site is that it should have incorporated both current and former architects in the same search so you only had to search once for a name. It would also be great to be able to link individual houses to each architect – Doing this could be a great resource for people researching homes and architectural history.
Disclaimer: My wife is an architect so I’m slightly biased towards the profession ;-)
AAA Architecture Tour Freemans Bay
Filed under: Blog Responses: 2 Comments
- Gerrad Hall Architects – Cameron / Farmer House – 5 Pember Reeves St (website)
- Marshall Cook – Franklin Rd House - 49 Franklin Rd (website)
- Claude Megson – Cocker Townhouses - Unit 4/57 Wood St
- Patterson Associates – Summer Street House - 2 Summer St (website)
- Belinda George Architects – Freemans Bay House - 3 Arthur St (website)
- Daniel Marshall – Hull/ Urban House - 4 Costley St (website)
- Russell Withers – Withers House - 11 Arthur St
My favourite houses were definitely the Franklin Road House by Marshall Cook and the Cameron/Farmer House by Gerrad Hall (which reminded me of the Schindler Chase house in LA. If your local Architecture or Historical Society is putting on an architectural tour I highly recommend tagging along.
Tags: open homes, tours
Where have all the houses gone?
Filed under: Blog, Property Statistics Responses: 1 Comment
Alistair over at the Unconditional Blog has just released the May New Zealand Property Report which shows a drop in the number of new listings coming onto the market. Ross Brader from the Professionals notes that there are only 13 houses left for sale in Pt Chevalier and they normal turnover in that suburb is 15 a month.
“In Pt Chevalier right now there are less homes on the market than at any point in the last 6 years yet we currently have 33% more buyers registered than we had in 2008 – 775 currently registered in our system.”
Relating this back to the real world of actually looking for property we are seeing a large number of people looking for homes. The house pictured above is 5 Ryle Street in Freemans Bay, Auckland which had an open home this weekend. When we visited there was literally a traffic jam of people trying to get in and out of the house. I think we have found a window where some sellers are happy to take a realistic price and there are buyers out there willing to pay for quality properties. I still think there are some unrealistic expectations out there and for a real resurgence in the market those will have to come down but things are looking OK for those willing to buy and sell for the right price.
Mapumental
Filed under: Blog, International views Responses: 0 Comments
Mapumental is an amazing new application from the folks at MySociety.org. The application gives you an interactive map tp help you find the best places to live in the UK. You can set your destination and arrival time and then use sliders to work out the exact areas that are within a certain commuting time. You can further filter the results by average house price and how scenic the area is. In real-time the map changes to filter out those areas that don’t match your criteria. This is a truly stunning use of mapping.
Unfortunately given the lack of a really great public transport infrastructure in New Zealand this probably wouldn’t work here to the same extent. Still, one day we may have enough data on commuting times to generate something along similar lines with a combination of driving, walking and public transport data.
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