Archive for March, 2010

As 2009 ended, so 2010 began with continued high levels of mortgagee sales across NZ. Whilst the number of mortgagee sales recorded in January at 196 was down from the December figure of 252 it was up 30% over the 1st month of 2009.

As commented by Mike Donald (Managing Director of Terralink) “We do often see a drop in mortgagee sales in January, in fact there were fewer mortgagee sales in January than there were December the month before. This may be because January is generally a quiet business month in New Zealand as many of us are on holiday”

He went on to say “I don’t expect to see mortgagee sales returning to pre-recession numbers at all in 2010. I wouldn’t expect to see a major decline on forced sales until at least the middle of 2011,”

The fact is that pre-recession levels of mortgagee sales as seen through the period up until 2008 would only average around 50 per month, so clearly the current levels are upwards of 4 times that level. The chart below tracks comparative months mortgagee sales over the period of the last 3 years.