Inquiry into Housing Affordability – Submissions closed

Written submissions to the Commerce Select Committee Inquiry into housing affordability (examining the cost of housing for first home buyers) –closed this month (15 June).
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BNZ gains market share but ASB grabs even more

Bank of New Zealand’s price war last year seems to have paid off for it in terms of winning market share, although ASB Bank continues to be the major winner in the mortgage market.
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Market rent but cash to pay for it

The National Party says it will consider raising welfare benefits to help state house tenants cope with market rents in what landlords say will be a rising rental market.
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State tenants: nearly 7000 earn rent from boarders

Nearly 7000 Housing NZ tenants known to have paying boarders are not required to pay extra rent. HNZ figures show that at October 31, 6931 tenants declared they had paying boarders. A month ago HNZ told the Sunday Star-Times that 1109 tenants declared paying boarders, including 1081 tenants who didn't have to pay extra rent.
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Bollard leaves rates unchanged despite worsening inflation outlook

Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard has left interest rates unchanged, saying that although the inflation outlook has worsened, it would be wrong to counter short-term pressures with monetary policy.
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Bollard delivers early Christmas present to the housing market

Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard opted to hold interest rates steady, prompting a sharp fall in wholesale interest rates and the New Zealand dollar.
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Lifestyle property prices show surge

Lifestyle property prices are surging matching the demand for houses in town.
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Top property investor selling up

One of New Zealand's top property investors is selling up his portfolio because, as Greg Ninness discovers, he sees the credit crunch as the beginning of the end.
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Brash, Peters reject capital gains tax

Neither National nor New Zealand First has any plan to introduce a capital gains tax, party leaders have reassured Property Institute members.
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Fixed home loan rates start the year falling

Borrowers begin the year with some hope that interest rates have reached their peak as weak growth data indicated chances are the Reserve Bank will be in a holding pattern until later this year, when some easing may eventuate.
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Tough decision time

Borrowers and people looking to refinance are facing some tough decisions.
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Bollard leaves rates unchanged but talks tough

Although Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard left interest rates unchanged, as expected, he’s again talking tough and opened the door to the possibility of a further rate hike.
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BNZ denies it's re-entering broker market

Speculation has been rife recently that the Bank of New Zealand plans to re-enter the mortgage broking market.
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Weekly Home Loan report

Westpac only bank to move rates - so far
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Housing demand

Your article on high-priced state housing highlights the problems that result when government policy tries to dictate housing trends. Historically, when governments interfere in the market it tends to have the opposite effect to what is Intended.
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Hungry housing will need $50b

The residential property market will need $50 billion of new investment during the next 10 years to cope with demand, a report by Centre for Housing Research says.
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Get ready for high rises and disposable futures

New Zealanders will live in more high-rise blocks like vertical villages in the next two decades because of the sheer impossibility of getting through grid-locked city traffic systems.
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Investors bullish on property despite flat market

Fluctuating fortunes in the housing market are luring serious landlords to go bargain-hunting so they can increase their portfolio size, says a survey published today.
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The Year Ahead

2007 opens with a diverse range of unfinished business carried over from last year’s political and policy agenda.
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Rises, rises all around

Home owners or people about to sign up to a mortgage to buy a property don’t have many good interest rate choices in front of them at the moment.
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Mayor backs police plan to set up blacklist of bad tenants - NZ Herald

Police in Kawerau have decided to set up a register of bad tenants in a move to rid the town of criminals.
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House price inflation likely to cool slowly

While house prices are currently greatly inflated compared with the long-term trend, it's likely to take a long time before they adjust back to trend, says Andrew Gawith, an economist at Infometrics.
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House prices up again in December

House price inflation accelerated again in December, continuing to confound expectations the housing market is poised to slow, according to the latest Quotable Value figures. Average annual growth in house prices nationally was 15.8% to $315,249 in December, up from 15% in November and 14.5% in October.
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HSBC exits broker market

HSBC is to stop selling mortgages through brokers.
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Small bank takes on large ones for big loans

The past week has been a relatively quiet one in terms of the quantum of changes to home loan rates, but there has still been plenty of heat amongst those battling it out at the bottom of the two-year rate table.
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