There is well know phrase of “20/20 hindsight” – looking back to this article now with the benefit of that hindsight I can clearly see the fallacy of the early call – the market has not rebounded. There are however a couple of important points to note:

1. A blog is a far more open and transparent medium than a newspaper – they are as guilty of early calls to predictions – the important thing is to admit the inaccuracy and move on

2. The market did change unexpectedly and significantly in mid September with the collapse of Lehman Bros. That impact was reported on this blog in this post in November.

3. These are exceptional times and there are very few professional economists that are prepared to predict the future. Reading my post above I did not say that the market had turned and that price would rise and sales would grow. I merely highlight what I saw in the stats. I think my closing sentence said it all:

“the analogy I would use to describe this warming of the market is the kind of slow and steady warmth you apply to frostbitten body-parts to avoid amputation!” – I was not saying everything would be fixed.

Thanks for your contribution – great to get a diversity of opinion.

Nice to get your insight into the Irish market, The Irish seem to have a keen interest in NZ – Ireland is in the top 10 countries visiting our website – equally I know a large number of kiwi see Ireland as a great place to live and your excellent website profiles a rich source of such information.

Thanks for bringing attention back to this summary. There is no doubt that the circumstances of the past month has been far beyond what people would have anticipated when this was written back in August. The market is in a state of shock at the moment and I think the figures for October will be a surprise to many as they could well be showing some of the lowest figures recorded.

I will put some stats together in the next week.

Alistair,
Unless I’ve missed it, surely it’s time for an update to this article.

So is the market recovering, or is it still getting worse ?
Have all those emails led to sales ?

A local real estate agent I was talking to the other day cannot understand why the figures being reported in the media don’t reflect the prices she is seeing. She has seen bigger price drops.
I wonder whether that is a good topic for an article. How do the official figures compare with reality on the ground.

Steve

Sales Numbers for 2008
Jan 5,186
Feb 6,356
Mar 5,129
Apr 4,464
May 4,372
Jun 4,305
Jul 4,489
Aug 4,220 <— Lower even than June.

Steve

Imagine if car yards started writing ads like this – “This massive family V6 is offered for sale for the first time in 3 years. Blessed with grey tint automatic windows, plus three pristine ash trays that have never been used, your dogs will drool at the sight of the fully lined rear cabin with mesh partition, perfect for those lazy summer drives along winding country roads, etc….”

One reason car yards don’t write this stuff is that a car is a car. And in many parts of the USA (with exceptions especially SF!!), a house is a house. In NZ, and especially in my area, side by side houses can be incredibly different. So I think much of our hyperbole was borne of this subtle difference in our markets.

Yes, compared to the USA we probably go over the top quite often, but NZ ad writers (listing agents) often get 100% of the commission and they have major motivation to make a property stand out from the crowd by highlighting its features and benefits. Buying a house is usually (I’m sure you’ll agree) a much more emotional event than buying a car, hence our challenge is to appeal to the emotions of the correct target audience. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

My opinion is that the taking of some basic photos and displaying a list of bedrooms, bathrooms, vendor motivation, etc is a little bit too easy. Anyone could do that really.

It’s interesting to see how the two systems in two different countries have evolved to their respective levels. Bottom line, I guess, is that both can and should learn from each other. Thanks for your input, I’d be keen to hear any further comments from you.