Ryan Bridge: The state of the housing market

I've got some numbers for this morning.

QV House Price Index for September quarter: guess what? Going backwards. Auckland leading the fall. 

Homes are worth an average of 1.1% less. Auckland's 2.5% less. 

And how does that make you feel, really? 

Most homeowners won't care because they're not trying to sell. But for those who are, it's depressing. 

Now first home buyers are cranking - a quarter of new mortgages went to first home buyers in the first half of the year. 

So we've got to ask ourselves: is this really what we want? 

When the numbers are bad for owners they're good for would-be-owners. 

We're forever complaining about the price of property, until we need to sell. 

So if this is the new normal, we'd better get used to it. 

It's interesting to look at what's selling. We had another developer —apartments— go bust in Auckland yesterday. 

Have a look at the apartments, even the nice ones, they were building - is that really somewhere you'd want to live?

Guess what's not selling? These buildings without carparks. 

This idea that somebody will want to buy a Shoebox and catch a bus is clearly not working out - they're taking the longest to sell. 

Turns out people also like privacy. Who would have thought? 

The bigger story here is that prices are lower and deep down, even though we say we want to fix the housing crisis, most people aren't happy about it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Got the numbers for you this morning. QV House Price Index.
This is for the September quarter going backwards and Auckland
leading the fall. Homes are worth an average of one
point one percent less Auckland's two and a half percent less.
This is over the quarter. And how does that make
you feel? Really? Most homeowners, of course, won't care because
they're not trying to sell their houses right now. But

(00:20):
for those who aren't depressing, first home buyers love it.
They're cranking at the moment. They're a quarter of new
mortgages first home buyers first half of this year a quarter.
So we've got to ask ourselves, is this really what
we want? When the numbers are bad for owners and
for homeowners, they're good for would be owners. We're forever
complaining about the press of property until we need to

(00:42):
sell it. So if this is the new normal, then
we better get used to it. It's interesting to look
at what is selling as well, because we had another
developer this is an Auckland apartments go bust yesterday and
have a look at the apartments, even the nice ones
that they were building. Is that really somewhere you would
want to live? Guess what's not selling? It's the new

(01:05):
builds without car parks. This idea that somebody will want
to buy a shoe box and catch a bus is
clearly not working out in the way that they intended.
That are taking the longest time to sell. Turns out
people also like privacy, who would have thought quite an
important factor. The biggest story here is that prices are
lower and deep down. Even though we say we want

(01:25):
to fix the housing crisis, most people aren't happy about it.
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