Well if The Block showed us anything; it’s that putting yourself in a position to enjoy competitive bidding can result is an exponential result. Sure it doesn’t happen all the time, but without selling by auction you will be forever wondering how much money you left on the table.

With the news around the economy generally positive and comment that unemployment in Auckland being at its lowest for 2 years, it’s not hard to understand why the housing market continues to march on in spite of the LVR restrictions. We’re busy and getting busier. Great to have a long weekend – enjoy!

Our observation is that the new LVR ‘ special limits’, while slowing the sale rate at the lower end of the market, have not dampened buyer enthusiasm to purchase. Our suspicion is that the current hiatus is a forerunner to a range of creative solutions that will no doubt be forthcoming and see first home buyers return in force.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat". Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

What a week – An All Black win and surely a win to Team New Zealand. There’s much to be proud of and even more to look forward to with the return of the America’s Cup to the Viaduct – exciting times !! And yet another reason to have a piece of property in Auckland.