Wall St, your street and the Warriors

Wall St stocks rose last night as investors anticipate the banking bail out – mean while the rest of the world holds its breath. Closer to home, the latest figures just released by Statistics New Zealand confirmed the obvious; New Zealand is suffering a shrinking economy.

Interestingly, against this, the latest consumer confidence survey shows a positive bounce back, with more optimists than pessimists. BNZ's Tony Alexander re-enforces this recovery belief in his latest post.

Our observation is buyers are cautiously on the prowl, understanding the merits of buying at this time and with a desire to get on with life. By and large values appear relatively intact, albeit off the highs of previous years.

Certainly for us, September is proving a much better month – with more sunshine and fingers crossed, another Warriors win on the way.

Ups and downs

After great All Black & Warriors wins, our euphoria was dampened with news out of the U.S. around the ongoing meltdown in the financial markets. This has had a sobering effect throughout the world.

The actual impact is yet to be felt – although it feels as though the market may be holding its breath as we all assess what’s happening.

In the meantime, we were interested to see this article in last weekend’s Sunday Star Times, which puts things into some balance.

Bollard slashes the OCR

Politics aside the big news this week was the significant 2nd drop in the Official Cash Rate (Read the article here)

While August sales nation wide for residential were at there lowest levels for 26 years our opinion has not changed in recent weeks. That is buyers are anticipating lower interest rates and have in increasing numbers decided to enter the market - that is to say we are witnessing a resurgence in activity and deals concluded in the areas we serve.

What's the best way to sell your house?

The Spring thaw is definitely upon us, with it warmer temperatures and it’s even raining less (hold your breath!) We’re often asked about the best way to sell – particularly as we approach the traditional selling season between now and Christmas.

The first question to answer is do we put a price on the property or not.

You would put a price on the property to sell if:
-You were sure of its value or if the attitude of the vendors was based on their desire to achieve a specific figure; and
-The vendor was under not particular time constraint to make a sale.

We would generally advise a no price approach if:
-The property (by virtue of its features and benefits) held the potential to achieve a significant premium;
-If it was difficult to value; and
-The vendor had a need to sell by a specific date.

With these thoughts in mind we would make a recommendation to the property owner based on an appraisal of the property and a full understanding of their requirements. In a changing market such as we are currently in, the no price approach can be a very productive way of finding the market value quickly.

Regardless of the process, the final sale price will be the result of a buyer and seller negotiating to the point of mutual satisfaction. Our goal is to create approaches that give the homeowner the best possible opportunity of selling.