Archive for September, 2008
Don’t think that blogging or having a website is the magic pill that will turn your business around. But do expect if done well to work for you in terms of exposure and credibility. This is the 21st Century. We have to realise what is now. And we are in an online revolution. The Fact is for any Generation Y person the internet is joined to us at the hip, to Gen X its widely used and is increasingly used by Baby Boomers. We have connection in our homes, our offices, in our cars and on our cell phones. Heck you can even go to MacDonald’s and go online.
There are many ways of participating on the internet. You can be a reader which absorbs the mass amounts of information available. You can have a stagnant website that promotes your business or you can have an active social platform that is constantly updated with new content that the reader absorbs and possibly comments on.
With these varying means of participation on the web what will give you the best results that you want. Well having a website is a great start. But what’s the purpose of it? Most websites for Real Estate Agents are just promoting themselves and their material and has little content that is updated. From time to time you may change the look of the properties order but in essence they stay the same. SO by themselves are fairly useless for delivering traffic of viewers. Unless you’re doing a vigorous marketing campaign with promoting the link to your website through online articles, Blog and forum posts the only time you’re likely to get someone visit your website is a current client and you have asked them to take a look at your stuff. Don’t get me wrong this in itself is still a very powerful tool as an agent. But for building new business it’s probably very limited.
So we move onto the next things that you can do on the internet and this is blogging and forums. I am mainly going to focus on blogging as your blog is yours and you control it, on a forum you don’t control it. Now don’t get me wrong but just having a blog will not mean you get success for the sake of having one. It actually does take a little effort. But the great thing about it being on the internet is that once it is there it will stay and the more you grow it the easier it becomes.
Blogs. Firstly what are they. Well it’s like a journal. The big aspect to these fore being seen on the internet is that the search engines love them. They are easy to read and the content is updated regularly(when the owner posts a new post). But how do you use them to the best of their ability.
Well your blog should help you in your business and accommodate your website. Linking is the key here but I’ll talk about that soon. The key is that you need to update your blog often. Keep the content relevant and new. The first step is to start one. So you have done this what next. Well get writing. Actually it’s not that simple but you do need to put content on there. But this can be hard. The need for content is to get traffic. The visitors are what is going to in the future bring you enquiry. If you like me you get excited about the thought of people reading the things you write. And the thought of more traffic is thrilling. To get this traffic you need to use the search engines to see them and the content. Now if you do start a blog and add 2 or 3 posts a week your on the right track. But if after a month you start to notice that there is very little search engine traffic coming your way don’t get disappointed. At this point you may start finding yourself wanting to give up, or slowing down in your posts. But PLEASE don’t give up. Just keep plodding on with relevant and rich content and you will be noticed.
Google – which is the biggest search engine and the one I focus on indexes websites every three months. This means if you have a new blog it may take up to three months before its recognised. But when it comes to indexing time if you have a rich content filled blog that’s looks to be updated frequently Google will index it higher than one that isn’t the above. Once it is indexed and ranked you will then probably start to receive more and more traffic from the search engines. And with more content you deliver and more searches made the more frequent the search engines will rank your sites keywords and the more traffic you will receive. When someone searches say for example for my blog “New Plymouth Real Estate” and from the search engine click on my blog that search engine regards my site as linked to this key word or phrase. And the more it gets clicked for this phrase that’s typed in the search engine “bots” think it’s more important and up the scale you go.
When you start to run out of things to write which will happen. There are a number of things you can do to get you thinking. Here are a few hints and tips: One of the things I do is I have “Google alerts” set for key phrases like Real Estate New Zealand, Real Estate Market, New Plymouth etc. What this does is every time something is posted on the internet with those keywords you get an alert to the email address you assign to them. A great way to keep in the loop with what’s going on. You can then create articles relating to the stories, put your spin on it. This also means your content is up to date and in the medias eye, so of public interest, which will generate traffic for you.
The other way which will quickly turn you into a perceived expert is use forums and site such as yahoo answers to find questions that people are asking in real time. When you find a question or a topic you know something about write up an article and put it on your blog. What you then do is go back to the place where the question was asked and post a link to your blog there. But also attempt to answer the question so your seen to be adding value so that the reader trusts your link. This will help the people asking the question. You will get targeted traffic from the link and the search engines will love you for it.
WOW! A lot to take in isn’t there. But this is the bread and butter stuff to creating a powerful blog that works for you. Now to get it really working for you there are some other things that you can do. Above I mentioned about linking to your website if you have one. Now that your blog is giving you great search engine response and you have regular visits every day you can start to use this traffic to the highly visible blog to the less visible website. What you can do is put links on each of your pages to go to your website. So when a visitor is on your blog reading through it and come to a word with a link and they click this they will be taken straight to your website. Now this has two great effects for your website. The first is that you will get traffic from your blog going to your website. Going from a content rich site that makes you look as an expert to your maybe promotional website about you. This is very powerful if done right. The second is the links to your website from your highly raked blog make it look to the search engine that your website is also important. Because your important blog is linking out it gives your website great exposure and credibility. How good is that!
There is a lot to take in here and to get the results you do first need to put the effort in. I think that if you do these you will be on the right track to having a great blog. To help your business you will become more exposed to the general public. Even if you get to 100 unique views per day you could have up to 700 people viewing your blog each and every week.
Blogging is still a relatively new concept in New Zealand so the participation is a little on the sad side in terms of numbers. But don’t be worried on this. People will be reading it. They will know it’s from you and if you keep doing it when they do have a question on the topic of some of your blog posts they will ask you. And this is when the rewards come. This means they respect your opinion and want your advice.
I wish you all the best with your blogging. If you do have any questions on this stuff please contact me.
Deon Swiggs
Property Profits
September 30 2008 | Uncategorized | 13 Comments »
Here I am sitting here at the batch with a drink in hand and the BBQ sizzling away with a steak and some other things and I just realised its 7pm. Last night we lost an hour of our sleep, but what we gained was an
extra hour of our daylight at the end of the day. What are you using this extra hour for.
Well the first day of daylight savings was a cracker here in New Plymouth. A day where I wish open homes didn’t exist so I could have been down at the beach with everyone else. Open home numbers were very low. I wonder why. Once the open home finished it was a case of pack up the family and friends and off to the batch where I find myself writing this before the battery on the laptop dies while dinner is cooked on the BBQ.
Winter this year was pretty grim and with the credit crunch and tough economic times I wouldn’t be the only one to say that it hasn’t been the easiest time to get through. But when you get days like we had today how could you feel down on life. And the extra bonus of an extra hour of twilight sun it’s just great.
Just looking today at the houses I was doing open homes on, they looks fantastic. The flowers are all out in full colour, the smells are nice, the temperature is nice and warm and the days are longer. It’s a great time to be selling property in terms of presentation. Everything looks great and with a little work on the edges your property can really stand out in the crowd at the moment.
Heres looking forward to a nice warm and sunny summer. Right now I am off to have the first BBQ of the season.
September 28 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
This makes for some interesting reading…
NEW Zealand’s economy has slipped into a recession for the first time in a decade, official data shows.
The decline in second-quarter gross domestic product data signalled further aggressive interest rate cuts by the reserve Bank in coming months.
Statistics New Zealand said production-based gross domestic product shrunk 0.2 per cent in the three months ended June 30, after it contracted 0.3 per cent in the first quarter.
“The last time there were consecutive quarters of decline in economic activity was the three quarters ending March 1998,” the statistics bureau said.
The quarterly figure compared with the 0.5 per cent contraction forecast in a Dow Jones Newswires poll of 12 market economists. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand had forecast the economy would contract 0.2 per cent.
The statistics bureau said GDP grew 1.0 per cent on the year, compared with the 0.6 per cent expected by economists and the first quarter’s 1.9 per cent growth on the year.
While the data is slightly better than most economists were expecting, it still shows a contraction and confirms that the economy has been squeezed by a combination of high interest rates and rising food and fuel prices crippling consumption. Drought conditions and a sharply slowing housing market added to the misery.
The weak economic picture, coupled with offshore financial turmoil, should keep on track market expectations for the Reserve Bank to continue its aggressive easing cycle.
Earlier this month the central bank slashed the Official Cash Rate by a bigger-than-expected 50 basis points to 7.50 per cent in a bid to engineer a quick recovery from the recession.
High interest rates and the rising cost of living continued to cool private consumption expenditure growth, which contracted 0.2 per cent, compared with a 0.4 per cent decline in the previous quarter.
The Reserve Bank and most economists are tipping the economy to show a further contraction in the third quarter.
Several economists are now expecting the Reserve Bank to ease by another 50 basis points at its October 23 Official Cash Rate review.
Sourced from The Australian Business
But this does not mean the end of the line by no means. We are still in a relatively good space at the moment and as the OCR continues to fall and world markets start stablising we will be back on a high.
September 26 2008 | The Market | No Comments »
When buying property in New Zealand you are effectively buying the building on a set piece of dirt. This piece of dirt is divided up on whets called the councils dwelling plans. Which diagrams where each dwelling is and where all the services and other things are, each of these are called a title.. When you buy a property there could be many different types of titles that the property could sit on. These include Fee Simple(freehold), Leasehold, Crosslease in Fee Simple, Crosslease in Leasehold, Stratum in Freehold, Stratum in Leasehold.
This all is a lot of gobly goop if you don’t know what it means. I would like to explain hopefully in an easy way what this means for you. I want to explain fee simple, leasehold , crosslease and strata titles to you.
What is Fee Simple (freehold)?
Technically the term freehold land refers to land free of any encumbrances such as mortgages.
However common usage over time now means that Fee Simple and freehold are terms which are used interchangeably.
The concept of freehold land (estate in fee simple) has its origins dating back to feudal times. Fee Simple is considered to vest in the private citizen the greatest group of rights in the use, enjoyment and alienation (i.e. the power to dispose) of the land allowed by law. In other words it is the highest form of personal ownership of land allowed under the New Zealand legal system.
Fee simple ownership has many practical advantages. Provided it is permitted by the Local Authority by way of the district plan, homeowners have the autonomy to make extensions and/or additions to their dwellings without changes to the title, and without the consent of neighbours. These activities are a particular problem with other title types.
Fee Simple owners can also bind subsequent owners of a property through registering positive or restrictive covenants upon the certificate of title. For example an owner might sell off part of a property but place a restriction on the incoming owner and subsequent owners to preserve a view by limiting the height or location of any new dwelling to be built on the alienated land.
What does Leasehold Land Mean?
A leasehold interest vests in the lessee certain occupation rights in land for a defined period of time. The rights are created by contract between the owner of the land (lessor) and the occupier (lessee).
Remember if you purchase a dwelling or commercial building located on a piece of leasehold land – you DO NOT OWN the land component.
Perpetually Renewable Leases
These are commonly found with some of the older residential leasehold arrangements. They are often referred to as ‘Glasgow leases’. They are typically renewed either every 7, 14 or 21 years, depending on what is specified in the contract. They may be renewed indefinitely, as long as the lessee adheres to his or her part of the contract.
Typically the ‘ground rent’ is renegotiated at renewal date. The most common way to establish the new rental figure is to link it to the land value. This percentage of land value is sometimes defined in the contract and other times it is not. In the latter instance rents are renegotiated at a rate dictated by the market.
WARNING: some new apartments are now being established with ground rents in place. If you buy into one of these, always ensure that future rental increases are defined by formula in the leasing agreement, otherwise you could be in for an unpleasant surprise.
Effectively when you buy a property on a leasehold title your buying the building on the property and the lease in which you have to pay an annual charge to the owner of the land(the Lessor).
What is a cross-lease?
A cross-lease is a means of obtaining a title for a share in the ownership of a piece of land and a lease of a dwelling on that land. The joint owners effectively lease the buildings to one another. Each owner holds a
“composite” certificate of title which records the land-share plus the lease. The lease is for a period of 999 years and the share corresponds to the number of dwelling units. The cross-lease plan shows the dwellings as “flats” and is often called a “Flats Plan”. The use of outdoor spaces is often defined by covenant (agreement) areas which are also outlined on the plan. There can be exclusive zones which mean that you have the sole right to the use of the area which you call exclusive. The guts of it is that when you buy a cross-lease property you are buying a share of the entire title that the properties are on.
How is it different from a unit or “strata” title?
Unit titles are supported by separate specific legislation, the “Unit Titles Act 1972″. This Act sets down in full detail how unit titles are to be created and managed.
A unit title provides separate ownership of a “principal unit” (the dwelling) and one or more “accessory units” (e.g. garages or outdoor spaces). There are lower and upper limits prescribed for each principal and each accessory unit so that all of one’s dwelling and any other buildings or outdoor living areas, service courts etc are contained in compartments of space which one owns rather than leases.
As on cross-lease plans, there can be, and usually are, one or more “common” areas covering common driveway or common open spaces jointly owned by all the unit owners.
A body corporate is required for the administration of each unit title arrangement.
Why are there two systems?
Cross-leasing was designed in the early 1960s to provide a simple means of obtaining separate titles for more than one dwelling on the same piece of land.
The unit title (also referred to as strata title) was designed to provide separate titles for buildings on different levels, i.e. for multi-story buildings. Although intended for multi-level units, the unit title is, however, also used for single level developments by choice.
I hope this helps. If you have any questions whe you do come to buying a property the best advise I can give you is talk it over with your solicitor. They will give you all the legal stuff to the title as well.
September 26 2008 | Buyers | 13 Comments »
New Plymouth is in line to be named the best place in the world to live.
UPDATE NOVEMBER 11 2008 – NEW PLYMOUTH HAS WON THE TOP CITY IN THE WORLD AWARD. Click to view article.
But we up against some solid opposition from standout towns in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Canada, Switzerland, England, Poland and China.
England-headquartered International Awards for Liveable Communities has just announced nine finalists for this year’s awards, which will be judged and announced in China in early November.
New Plymouth is the only New Zealand community to be shortlisted for any of the awards, and it is in line for two of them – a Whole City award for communities with populations between 20,000 and 75,000, and the coastal walkway has been shortlisted to win the 2008 title as the world’s best environmentally sustainable project.
District Mayor Peter Tennent, chief executive Barbara McKerrow, and general manager of community assets Anthony Wilson are all to travel to the judging event to make presentations on behalf of New Plymouth.
“Just to be a finalist in both these categories means greater awareness of what New Plymouth and New Zealand have to offer in terms of a great lifestyle both now and in the future,” Mr Tennent said yesterday.
“If we win either or both of these awards, the benefits through worldwide public awareness could be huge.”
The awards, which were launched in 1997, are endorsed by the United Nations and are the world’s only awards that focus on best practice regarding management of the local environment.
The objective of the awards is to encourage innovation and leadership in providing a vibrant and environmentally sustainable community that improves the quality of life of the people who live there.
The communities aren’t judged against each other, but on how they are performing against criteria that ranges from enhancement of the landscape and management of heritage, to healthy lifestyles and planning for the future.
There are nine communities in line for the Whole City award, and they include Chrudim, in the Czech Republic, which is known as the Athens of eastern Bohemia, the Hungarian wine city of Eger, Switzerland’s beautiful lakeside centre of Montreux, the historic English market town of Newark on Trent, Poland’s mountain community of Powiat Tatrzanski, and the water town of Zhujiajiao, which is known as the Venice of China.
New Plymouth’s hugely popular coastal walkway joins 11 other finalists for the title of the world’s best environmentally sustainable project – the judging criteria for this honour is that the projects must demonstrate sustainability and environmental awareness, and encourage the maximum positive impact on the local environment.
There’s a variety of projects on the shortlist, including a model sustainable community called UniverCity at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, a city centre redevelopment at Jordan’s Greater Irbid Municipality, which aims to preserve the city’s cultural identity, the Cosmo City mixed-race housing development in South Africa, and a culture heritage trail in Poland.
Mr Tennent said he was hugely enthusiastic about New Plymouth being named a finalist for the awards.
“Basically this says that out of all the countries in the world, New Plymouth is one of just nine cities that could receive the ultimate accolade as the best place to live,” he said.
“The people who live and work here already think this part of New Zealand is pretty special – but now we have an independent panel of international judges who have looked at what we’ve got, and noticed that something pretty outstanding is happening here.”
source: Taranaki Daily News 23/09/2008
September 23 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
Although August was said to be a very low month in general for sales around New Zealand, New Plymouth found itself still holding up strong. All the stats show that it was a better month than both June and July. Not a whole lot better but could be a signal that things are moving. This can be seen with the average time on the market dropping for the first time this year and also with the median slae price moving upwards. The Stats are as follows.
Median Days Median Sale Price Total on Market Total Sold
August 61 $300,000 951 71
July 69 $285,000 1027 76
June 53 $285,000 1061 69
September 23 2008 | The Market | 2 Comments »
When you choose to invest in a property to rent out – you should choose wisely. You should initially choose a property that will create a positive income for you as well as a place that will keep the cost of operating low.
It would be ideal to create a list to keep you on track while you search for the perfect rental property. The list should have things that you should look for in a rental property, so that you can have it in mind while you are looking.
You should take as many variables as you can into account when searing for the right place.
Initially, you can consider the state of the property. Usually, when a property is listed at a great price, it’s probably for a reason for the low price. Experienced investors will tell you that you can generally figure out what the profit margin will be prior to buying a rental property.
While you may just be holding on to the property to rent and won’t be selling for a while, it’s important to take a look at the condition of the home, and what renovations you may have to take care of prior to renting. This should help you make a more educated decision about which property you’ll choose in the end. It’s better to choose a higher priced property if it needs less work.
The location of the property is one of the most important factors in finding the ideal rental property. Homes located on busy streets are less desirable to renters that are looking for a nice, quiet place. A rental property that is very close to amenities, schools and transit is a wise choice.
Another essential to purchasing a home is to find any history on the property, and to find out if the place was ever used as a rental property. Sometimes in the past if a place has been used as a rental, it’s possible it may have a bad reputation, and word has traveled fast throughout the rental community. This could definitely be a hurdle, so it’s a good idea to find out any details.
If the property is indeed currently a rental place, you should also find out if people are currently living in the place. If they are, you can see if you need to continue carrying out the rental agreement that may be in place already. But if it is a term lease you will be unable to increase the rental rate until the fixed term lease is over. It may be an advantage, as you could potentially already have renters in place. Either way, it’s definitely something to think about!
Upkeep and repair of the property is also something to keep in mind. If you are unable to maintain the place at any point, you may need to hire someone to come in and perform any work that needs to be done. Of course, this does create more expenses, but it may work out in the end as an advantage. It’s definitely another point to keep in mind.
In closing, look at the price of the property, and make sure you can always have enough money to cover the mortgage payments and any other expenses that may be incurred. These expenses include taxes, insurance, etc. There could be a time when the property is left unoccupied, and you will still need to make sure you are covering all of the payments.
September 21 2008 | Buyers | 1 Comment »
Slump, Recession, Depression, Crisis, Doom, Gloom, Debts, Bankruptcies, Shortcomings, Backward, Poor, Redundancies, Decline, Dip just to name a few! NO more Money, Housing market to fall 30%, Homeowners Beware, Banks Failing, Credit Crunch, Market Disaster just a few of the headlines you see in the media now.
Why is this the emphasis of our lives. Everything is negative. Maybe it’s an instinct to try and protect ourselves and our assets. Or maybe it’s a way to hide a more deeper concern with our lives. I don’t know. But don’t you think we are our own worst enemy. All the negative and bad news. Not just to do with Real Estate but almost everything. Does it have to be like this. Well let’s face it BAD NEWS SELLS.
So are we in a society that now flourisishes of other peoples misfortunes. Or do we enjoy seeing big corporations going under. Well it definitely makes things interesting. And facts are facts. But the spinoff on these events to me seems to be over the top.
Take for example the OCR drop last week. This is a significant move by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. Now there was some small amounts of good news if you looked for it. But instead what smacked you in the face was all the negative hype. This is just one of the comments made,
I hate to say this but Dr. Bollard is like any trader with a big bet.
He single handedly sold approx. NZD 4.0 billion short on the open forex markets on behalf of the RBNZ.
It’s hard for me as a retired professional trader not to think his vision is coloured by this fact. He is certainly on to a winner.
Equally, it is now impossibly hard for me not to spend every spare penny before inflation and taxes and the currency collapse make my NZD income from savings worthless.
So much for a balanced national trade/current account.
These types of comments are being made all the time on such sites like interest.co.nz. It seems to be a place where negative people hang out and try and justify their knowledge by disagreeing with everything and everyone.
Bad news is negative. Negative news creates a sense of unrest. Unrest causes unhappiness and its this unhappiness that is a huge driving factor to why most people on the street are stuck in the moment we call now.
You can’t say facts aren’t facts. And when a bank fails overseas it will have implications. Or when the OCR is dropped it will have implication some negative some positive. Why is it the negative that gets voiced the loudest. Not the positive. There is a saying that goes – one will feed off the environment around them. This being the case then we are feeding off some fairly negative stuff out there.
The internet unfortunately has very little accountability to what is being said. So anyone can say anything they like. Which if in the right context can be an extremely valuable tool. But I think it’s going too far. People are becoming worried. I have had a purchaser pull out of a deal today because of what she heard on the TV last night that property values will come back 30%. Is this what the speculators want. Probably so they can bag the bargins that will follow for themselves. Which will then trigger the next boom which they will sell make their money and then rant and be negative again.
Life goes on and there could be some reason to think that prices may come down but just look at the facts. Look what’s happening around us today. There is economic uncertainty, there is a problem but why think of it as a problem. There are houses selling. People are not losing money at the rate as been perceived. Remember we are all in this together.
Maybe a bit more emphasis on the positive side to the negatives would spark some consumer confidence and get some peoples heads out from beneath the blankets. People in positions of perceived knowledge should maybe instead of constantly bagging and putting the property and financial markets downwards could instead shed some light to help make people confident again. There is no reason to be as negative as we have been. Something needs to be done before all the negative people around us drag the rest of us down!
If you have questions on the market. Talk to a local Real Estate Agents who knows the facts. They will be able to provide you with the cold hard positives and negatives of the time. Listen to all the information. It is a great time to buy Real Estate. It is a great time to Sell. If you think like that you WILL get a result. And Just remember if it is a little tough its tough for all of us.
September 18 2008 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
The aim of this article is to explain the credit crunch and explain how it may have an effect on you as a borrower. Bearing in mind that this is very variant depending on who you talk to, which company you use to lend and where in the world you are. But this is an overview.
Let’s start by explaining what the credit crunch actually is. The term, and the situation as we know it, began in the US, and was caused by two primary reasons. Firstly, the way money was being lent and also the way in which the lenders were procuring the money which they were lending have caused the problem.
The majority of lenders lend money which they don’t actually have. Nowadays, strictly speaking, they can’t lend money they don’t have, but they can lend money which isn’t entirely their own. They lend what is called securitised money. Securitised money is the name given to money which is borrowed from elsewhere and then passed on to the borrower. This money is normally sourced from what are called the money markets. Lending companies will borrow huge amounts of money at a time from these money markets, in some cases many millions at a time. These amounts of money are referred to as a tranch of money.
Once that tranch of money has been lent to borrowers, they then set about borrowing more but what has already been lent is known as a lending book. That lending book has a value to institutional investors. Institutional investors are people such as pension companies or large investors who want to own loans lent to others that are going to be repaid but don’t want to go through the hassle of actually lending it in the first place and dealing with the end user. Lending books depending on their quality can have quite a high value.
It is the quality of these lending books that plays such an important role as to why we have a credit crunch at all. Ideally, a lending company would obtain a tranch of money for lending at a set rate. They would then lend this money to their borrowers at a percentage higher than that, and would therefore be making a profit. However, there are two significant possibilities which can ruin this ideal situation. The first is if the secondary lender lends poor quality money to the public. That is to say that some or all of that money has not been paid back and so is not effectively there to lend. The other possibility is if the money being distributed by the primary lenders, the distributors of the tranches of money, runs out.
Both these scenarios have occurred in the United States. Erratic payment and non payment of loans obtained
by the public have left the secondary lenders with a trail of bad debt on their lending books which have in turn led the institutional investors to leave the markets. This has a subsequent effect on the secondary lenders in that there are less institutional investors to borrow money from and the ones that remain will be far more scrupulous in scrutinising the loan books before putting their money forward, and so continues the downward spiral. The secondary lenders need money to borrow and continue on but the investors are not willing to invest in what they can perceive from the loan books to be bad debt and therefore bad investment opportunities.
The credit crunch, coupled with sharply rising prices of fuel, food, housing and basic utilities, has led to much discussion in the media about the possibility of a recession. A recession is a time of general economic decline and could ultimately see a lot of businesses losing money, and having to cut down on the number of employees. It is likely that during a recession, the cost of living will rise even more and it will be even more difficult to borrow money if you need to.
Nobody knows how long the current credit crunch will last, or if it will result in a recession. One of the safest things you can do to relieve the pressure of the credit With a clear indication of where your money is going, you will find you are much better suited to deal with any unpredicted financial fluctuations. crunch is to watch what you spend by setting up a monthly budget, which can be easily done using most spreadsheet packages.
The overall outcome of the credit crunch means in the housing market means that it is harder to obtain a loan to finance any purchases. Registered Valuations are needed in many cases where large finance deals are needed. This is so that the bank can have some security in what they are lending to purchasers. When wanting to buy yourself a home the safest bet is to have some savings, little or no outside debt and possibly some equity. This will make sure you have a strong chance to be able to buy and be approved for a loan.
Article Sourced from a brilliant website named Mortgage Route
Deon Swiggs
Property Profits
September 17 2008 | Buyers and The Market | No Comments »
The news that the nation is in the midst of a real estate correction is hardly headline news anymore. The fact of life is that property prices have come back and the market is slowed down. This slow down means less buyers buying. And with a continual flow of proeprties coming to the market there are many properties and to top it off some investors have pulled out from some of their portfolios, all up leaving behind a host of homes on the market that presently outpace the number of buyers in the market. What should be headline news, however, is how the wisest of sellers have reduced their profit expectations and happily entertain all offers reflective of the corrected values of their homes. These “onto it” sellers know that when they sell they are more than likely able to buy their next house at the same perceived bargin price.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post giving some tips to sellers looking to sell in a buyers’ market. But this time I want to give some tips to Buyers in this buyers market so that the buying process can be made as straight forward as possible. Especially when dealing with the emotionally attached sellers who don’t want to give their home away.
Here are 5 quick tips to get yourself on the way to buying something effectively in this market
Get pre-approved for a mortgage.
It’s a different sort of market when coming to buy if you need to finance your purchase. Credit companies have tightened considerably, with many of the products offered to buyers only a year ago no longer available today. Lenders have retreated to safer standards of underwriting that protect borrowers from overextending themselves. If you can’t afford a particular home using solid mainstream financing, you should continue looking.
Let your fingers do the walking.
With so many homes to see, attempting to visit each one is counterproductive. Wasted time creates missed opportunities. At realestate.co.nz you can look at 90% of the properties the countries real estate agents have on the market and if you go to trademe.co.nz you could look at some of the private sellers trying to sell privately along with some agency listings. Once you’ve narrowed your search, contact an a real estate agent you either trust or who seems to know what they are doing to help you judge the best values in your price range. Their insights, along with the analytical tools they bring to the table, will help you discard the overpriced lemons in your target neighbourhoods. The help of an agent is vital and can really help you make an informed and wise decision. Remember the use of an agent as a buyer won’t cost you fighter.
Beware of strangers bearing gifts.
You aren’t shopping for a new car lease or a sexy new flat-screen TV, so don’t let merchandise incentives cloud your vision. If a seller is offering an incentive to buy, make sure it has something to do with the house, like a credit toward a desirable upgrade or a further reduction in price. They may be giving these incentives to cloud the reality that the house is overpriced or may be defected in some way.
When you find the right house at the right price, buy it!
If recent sales in the neighbourhood support its asking price, go for it. Presumably, you are hunting for more than just a good price; you’re also looking for that one special house that completely suits your lifestyle. Holding back in hopes that prices will go lower is a flawed strategy. You can never know this until prices are heading up again. Meanwhile, someone else may buy the home, especially if it is priced correctly. Remember profiting from a property investment is also a long term investment.
Make intelligent offers that enable you to negotiate with skill. Right now there is plenty of room to negotiate, provided you aren’t making uninformed offers that sellers don’t take seriously. You are in a much stronger position when you can show that recent sales in the neighbourhood justify your offer. This provides a much firmer foundation from which to begin negotiations and takes you a giant step closer to enjoying your new home. A Real Estate agent who knows the area will be able to help you with this and help in the negotiating process.
Also remember everyone wants a sale as everyone gets a result from it. The seller gets the house sold, you get to buy the house you want and the agent gets their commission. So at the end of the day we are all striving for the same result.
Deon Swiggs
Property Profits
September 15 2008 | Buyers | No Comments »
Well tonight I was just sitting down entering things into my database and generally just browsing the net and then BAM. The house started movng and everyone in the house starts running around. Seems to be an exciting thing for the kids when the ground starts to move and the house creeks and shudders.
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I must admit that it is some sort of feeling of excitement when an EarthQuake does hit. I remember a number of years ago when I too was a young kid being all excited after the earthquakes hit. This particular hit is the first one I have felt in many years and the first that has knoced something off a shelf. There was a sudden jolt and then a slow rumble lasting about 3 seconds. No damage was caused but hey still all exciting stuff.
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Here are the details of the quake.
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Universal Time: September 14 2008 at 9:25 – Sunday,
Latitude, Longitude 40.28°S, 174.53°E
Focal Depth 90 km
Richter magnitude 5.2
Region Wanganui Basin Location at sea located
- 50 km south of Waitotara
- 60 km south of Waverley
- 60 km south-west of Wanganui
- 110 km north of Wellington
The picture to the right is an actual picture of a map that shows near real–time shaking intensity from New Zealand’s network of seismographs, I took a snapshot of this picture at about 9:55pm. Quite amazing really. Most of the movements are less than a magnitude of 3 but you can see the yellow spots where the intensity of the quake was felt stronger. The picture though gives a fairly clear picture of how much this country moves along our major faultlines. Just Look at Wellington!!
This quake would have been felt in much of the North Island including the city Wellington, Levin, Palmerston North, Wanganui, New Plymouth, Hastings and as far up as Hamilton and in the South Island around the Nelson, Benheim and Picton areas all felt it and reports show that it was felt as far south as Rangiora.
If your interested you can get real time up to date information from 24/7 from www.geonet.org.nz
If you felt the quake leave a comment
Deon Swiggs
Property Profits
September 14 2008 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
The New Zealand dollar tumbled to a 2-year low versus the US dollar as the Reserve Bank
of New Zealand lowered its key interest rate by .5% points to 7.50%. The move surprised the economists who were widely expecting a 25 basis point cut. The NZ dollar also slumped to a more than 2-yearlow against the yen and multi-day lows against the euro and the Aussie.
This is the second rate cut in a row, with the first reduction in the Official Cash Rate implemented on July 24. The central bank had then lowered interest rates by .25%. At that time, the central bank signaled, that more rate reductions were to come in hopes of stimulating an economy suffering from a decline in the housing markets, commodities and credit restrictions.
The New Zealand stock market reacted positively following the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s decision to cut its key interest rate. At 8.25 P.M. ET, the benchmark NZX 50 Index was advancing 32.00 points or 0.96% to 3,375.86, while the NZX All Capital Index was gaining 33.97 points or 1.01% to 3,409.33.
Alan Bollard has said that the move to lower the OCR is appropriate to move towards a less restrictive monetary policy stance which could suggest that they will continue cutting rates in the future as weakening economic activity is “expected to translate into lower inflation pressures in the medium term.”
Alan Bollard said “The New Zealand economy is experiencing a marked slowdown, while domestic activity is likely to pick up late this year as a result of personal tax cuts, increased government spending and rising rural incomes, we expect a prolonged period of household sector adjustment and below-average growth.”
The New Zealand dollar, which closed yesterday’s New York session at 0.6622 against the US currency, fell to 0.6494 early this morning. This is the lowest its been since October 10, 2006.
The strength of the US dollar is also weighing the kiwi. The US currency has been rallying on the back of a drop in crude oil prices. The US trade balance report for the month of July may be in the spotlight in the early New York session today. The trade deficit is expected to widen to $58.0 billion compared to the previous month’s deficit of $56.8 billion.
But what does this mean for property and Buyers in New Zealand.
Well Kiwibank has responded to the cut in the Official Cash Rate by reducing all its home loan rates.
These include 0.50 percent off its variable rate which moves to 9.7 percent and 0.36 percent off its two-year fixed rate, which moves to 8.49 percent.
Kiwibank chief executive Sam Knowles says We appear to have passed the peak of very high interest rates and we now have the opportunity to pass on some genuine savings to home owners.
Most of the other major banks are now following Kiwibanks lead but have not drooped their rates to the extent of Kiwibank who seem to be market leaders at the moment for interest rates.
Now it will be cheaper to have a home loan. So if you are buying some Real Estate make sure you get a good deal from your lending company. But all the signals are looking bright. Interest Rates are coming down, Petrol Prices are coming Down, Property Prices have come down but seem to be slowing flattening out. ALl this signals that maybe New Zealand is coming out of the Ressession and maybe about to steady out.
If you want to read a very informed article from Bernard Hickey of interest.co.nz click this link. But try and avoid taking in the negative comments from the discussion. Many people are still negative about the housing market. But in my opinion this is not the right attitude to have. If you look at the facts and the figures over the long period and talk with people out and about there seems to be some optimisum out there in terms of the New Zealand economy and housing market. The over all feel is positive.
September 12 2008 | The Market | 4 Comments »
What is Sleepwalking and what causes it. Well I tried to find out but it seems nobody re
ally knows.But when it happens to you it can be a rather horrible experience.
Last night for the first time I sleepwalked. From what I sort of remember I was having a nightmare of some sort and running from something. But when I woke up I was in the middle of the garden outside the back porch. Fortunately no one saw me as far as I know but I have n memory of what happened.
But the reason I woke I think was that I had got my foot stuck on a board and tried to pull it out. The damage to myself, a broken toe and a cracked rib. Not my idea of a good nights sleep.
But the other things that I had done was almost turned the bathroom and kitchen upside down. The mess was unbelievable. Like the FBI had ransacked my house.
I did a little reading on sleepwalking and found there was no real explanation apart from stress but thought that it made interesting reading. So for those of you who may have experienced sleepwalking or talking might be that your stress levels are up. Or something is on your mind. But never less you’re not alone. I know what it’s like now.
WHAT IS IT:
Sleep disorders such as sleepwalking arise when normal physiological systems are active at inappropriate times. We do not yet understand why the brain issues commands to the muscles during certain phases of sleep, but we do know that these commands are usually suppressed by other neurological mechanisms. At times this suppression can be incomplete-because of genetic or environmental factors or physical immaturity-and actions that normally occur during wakefulness emerge in sleep.
SYMPTOMS:
- Rising from the bed during sleep
- Blank face. Stares into space
- Unresponsive when spoken to
- Difficult to awaken
- No recall of the incident
- May consist of sitting up making walking motions, actually walking, or even performing detailed tasks.
TREATMENT
- Again, as in nightmares, sleep talking, etc., stress can be a big factor.
- Try relaxation techniques or meditation prior to bed time.
- Avoid becoming over tired or fatigued.
- Some drugs can cause episodes of sleep walking.
- Avoid the use of alcohol.
- If you sleep with someone, have them awaken you if you become restless.
- If you sleep walk, make sure your surroundings are safe and obstacle free. Avoid sleeping upstairs or in an upper bunk.
September 10 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
You see it on the Internet and hear it on television, an increasing amount of noise about “outrageous” real estate commissions. The noise is coming, principally, from companies hoping to divert money from licensed agents into their own pockets, but, the nationwide average of a standard 3.5% commission does seem like a lot of money.
But most good agents actually earn very little on a per hour basis (there are many other hands dipping into that 4% and the ultimate net is probably closer to1 to 2%) and may return more than the commission to the seller in an increased sales price. The best agents certainly more than earn their commission, often as much after the sale as before it.
So, what does a good agent do? What should a seller expect from an agent in return for that commission?
- An honest listing price. Pricing is key, and a seller should expect expert advice from their agent. However, sellers dig their own grave when they invite several agents to compete for a listing, and expect each to come up with a suggested listing price. Agents often (rightly) view the competition as hinging on price and some have resorted to “bidding for the listing,” assuming that the highest suggested price will snag the business. And this is bad news for trying to sell.When an agent fudges the numbers a little to secure a listing you have to wonder whos interest they have in heart. Is it yours or their own. Some companies have taken a proactive approach to this and do not permit their agents to discuss price with the seller till the seller is comfortable with that agent. But for a seller when interviewing agents, question them about their experience, ideas, and references; try and avoid price nor allow them to do so. Once an agent is picked on the basis of comfort level, energy, and ideas, then invite him to price the house.At this point, you have the right to expect an honest evaluation of your home. This means well researched “comps,” i.e. selling prices (very recent ones) on similar homes in or near your neighborhood. Selling prices are readily available from newspapers, the county assessor, or any number of other places, but an agent can quickly provide this information and give valuable insight beyond the mere number. “Yes, the house was the same size as yours and on a similar lot, but it had a brand new kitchen with granite countertops, a master bath to die for, and a water view.” Or, “Yeah, three bedrooms and two baths, but there was probably $10,000 needed to make it sanitary before a real human would move in.”
An agent can also supply information on the competition, houses currently on the market in your price range. You cannot get this elsewhere without prowling open houses or posing as a buyer and scheduling home showings. The agent may also have inside information on the selling price of homes under contract even though this information is not yet a matter of public record.
- Straight talk about EVERYTHING. An agent’s hardest job may be telling a seller the truth. Many sellers are outraged when they hear it, but if you are planning to pay 4% to the agent, prepare to welcome the bad news as well as the good.The most painful truths are about odors, dirt, and clutter. An agent must fess up if that nice, cozy “I’m home” smell is actually flattening buyers at the door, and then be willing to help identify and remove it. There was a perfectly lovely home for sale in here in New Plymouth. Where houses do sell quite well still but this one was for sale for over a year, listed with three different agents; the price reduced four or five times. The owners were desperate. They finally employed an agent who I know very well who told them that their home smelled awful and spent over two weeks tracking down the smell and hiring someone to eliminate it. There was immediate competitive bidding and the house sold near their original asking price. This was a good agent who more than earned her 4%.If a house needs some basic maintenance, is cluttered, dirty, or smells, a good agent should not be afraid to tell the truth and help improve the situation.
- Advice and Guidance An agent should be prepared to help the seller emphasise the positive and eliminate the rest. This does not mean that he/she should get down on her hands and knees to scrub away gunk that might stick buyers to the kitchen floor, or go through and throw away the 30 year collection of magazines and newspapers that are obstructing entry to the guest bedroom. It does mean, however, that he/she will have the names of people or businesses that will do this and more. A truly good agent should have a great network with hundreds of contacts who run yard sales, wash windows, appraise antiques, and so forth.Some agents are very good at staging, some even keep a garage full of furniture and accessories which they will haul in and use to stage. Don’t count on this! Most agents are too busy to even stage their own homes, but they probably have the name of a good interior design person who specializes in homes for sale. Some will ask for a staging or home improvement budget and handle all of the arrangements (you just pay the bill.)
- Access, feedback, and follow up If a buyer can’t see it, he can’t buy it. An agent is responsible for guaranteeing access to each and every buyer with an interest in the home. Depending on your arrangement, you have a right to expect that the agent will either (a) put a lockbox on the house in a manner that guarantees both access and security; (b) make keys readily accessible in her office; or (c) be available at reasonable times and with adequate notice to admit buyers or other agents with buyers. If an agent agrees to accompany every showing, you have the right to expect that he/she will be available to do so or will arrange for another agent to replace her in the event of illness, vacation, or other occasions of unavailability.This, incidentally, does not end with putting the house under contract. You should expect your agent to be available to admit and accompany all of the people who will want to enter your home – building inspectors, the valuer for loan aps, the family who want to see and the buyers who usually have a guaranteed right to several visits prior to putting an offer in and a visit before settlement.An agent should keep in touch with you and keep you up to date. Your agent should report general information, particularly any negative comments on price or condition, particularly if these can be easily addressed. Feedback is always important to keep in tune with the buyers in the market.
There are many other attributes that a good agent should possess to his or her sellers. But I will discuss some of these at a later date. The ones mentioned above should if taken seriously lead to a successful transaction of Real Estate.
Deon Swiggs
Property Profits
September 08 2008 | Sellers | No Comments »
New Plymouth, a great city to live in. And as a lot of New Zealand locations there is a great deal of history here. This post is here to help better inform you on how our city was moulded and the history of our great city.
The city of New Plymouth, New Zealand, has a history that includes a lengthy occupation and residence by Maori, the arrival of white traders and settlers in the 19th century and warfare that resulted when the demands of the two cultures clashed.
European settlement began in the early 1840s at a time when many original Maori inhabitants were absent, either because they had been taken captive by northern Maori warriors or had migrated south to avoid war. The rapid growth of the colonist population, coupled with insatiable demands for land by the New Zealand Company and the dubious practices it employed in purchasing it, created friction with local Maori, leading to war in the 1860s. New Plymouth became a fortified garrison town and its residents suffered hunger and disease. Farming was impeded and immigration and trade came to a halt.
In the aftermath of the war, as improved road and rail links with other towns resulted in a rapid growth of population and economic stability, the town became a major exporting port for dairy produce from the Taranaki district and the administrative centre for Taranaki’s petro-chemical industry.
Before 1838: Early contact and inter-tribal conflict
The area where New Plymouth was founded had for centuries been the home for several Māori iwi (tribes). From about 1823 the Maori began having contact with European whalers as well as traders who arrived by schooner to buy flax. In March 1828 Richard “Dicky” Barrett (1807-47) set up a trading post at Ngamotu after arriving on the trading vessel Adventure.
View of the New Plymouth shoreline. The city is to the left and in the distance is Ngamotu and Sugarloaf Islands, scene of the first European settlement.
Barrett and his companions were welcomed by Te Āti Awa tribe, who realised that the Europeans, with their muskets and cannon, could assist in their continuing wars with Waikato Maori, as well as providing cloth, food and utensils. Following a bloody encounter at Ngamotu in 1832, most of the 2000 Āti Awa living near Ngamotu migrated south to the Kapiti region and Marlborough, leaving about 300 to live on the newly fortified Moturoa and Mikotahi, two of the Sugarloaf Islands west of Ngamotu. Barrett also left the area. The Waikato Maori returned in 1833, laying siege to the Āti Awa remnant until their surrender almost a year later.
1838-1840: New Zealand Company’s first land purchases.
In 1838 the New Zealand Company was formed in England with the purpose of facilitating and encouraging migration from overcrowded cities to New Zealand, selling land to settlers who would work as farmers and labourers. A separate enterprise, the Plymouth Company, was established in Plymouth in February 1840, where it was run under the guidance of agent Thomas Woolcombe. (Many streets in New Plymouth bear the names of the company’s directors, including Woolcombe, the Earl of Devon, Thomas Gill, Sir Anthony Buller, Lord Eliot, George Leach, Sir Charles Lemon, Edward St Aubyn, E.W.W. Pendarvis, Lord Courtenay and Hussey Vivian.) The company merged with the New Zealand Company in April 1841 after suffering financial losses through the collapse of its bank.
Barrett returned to Ngamotu in November 1839 aboard the Tory, a vessel carrying out an exploratory expedition for the New Zealand Company. With him was Colonel William Wakefield, a land purchasing agent for the company. A month earlier Wakefield had claimed to have bought 80,000 km² (20 million acres), comprising one-third of New Zealand, from certain Taranaki and other Maori in Wellington. The area extended from Aotea Harbour near Waikato to Hurunui River in north Canterbury in the South Island.
Barrett, who could speak some Maori, acted as the sole agent for the New Zealand Company, negotiating the purchase of Taranaki land on behalf of the company and on February 15, 1840 – the month the Treaty of Waitangi was signed – a formal Deed of Sale was signed by 75 Maori individuals, with payment made with guns, blankets and other chattels. Many witnesses later testified that Barrett had not read out the deed or adequately explained it at the time of signing. Included in the purchases was a vast area in central Taranaki extending from Mokau to Cape Egmont, and inland to the upper reaches of the Whanganui River including Mt Taranaki; a second deed, the so-called Nga Motu deed, included New Plymouth and all the coastal lands of North Taranaki, including Waitara. The company had already begun on-selling the land to prospective settlers in England with the expectation of securing its title.
J. Houston, writing in Maori Life in Old Taranaki (1965), observed: “Many of the true owners were absent, while others had not returned from slavery to the Waikatos in the north. Thus the 72 chiefs of Ngamotu cheerfully sold lands in which they themselves had no interest, as well as lands wherein they held only a part interest along with several others.”[8] The poor understanding by Maori of the nature and extent of the sale – confusion that later led to tension and warfare over land – was not aided by Barrett’s translation skills: at subsequent Land Claims Commission hearings in Wellington he was invited to demonstrate his translation ability on a lengthy, legalistic document and was said to have “turned a 1600-word document, written in English, into 115 meaningless Maori ones”.
The Waitangi Tribunal noted that Wakefield’s purchase, and the company’s subsequent sales, were patently invalid: on January 14, 1840 George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales, of which New Zealand was a dependency, had issued a proclamation that purchases of Maori land by private interests after that date would be null and void and not recognised by the Crown. In November the company renounced its initial large-scale “purchases” in a deal that provided it with four acres (1.6ha) for every pound it had spent on colonisation.
1841: Selecting a sit
e
Eleven months later, on December 12, 1840, Frederic Alonzo Carrington, the 32-year-old Chief Surveyor for the Plymouth Company, arrived in Wellington with the task of creating a 44 km² (11,000 acre) settlement in New Zealand for people of the West Country. Wakefield had already been informed that the Plymouth Company was to take over some of the New Zealand Company land. He urged Carrington to select a site at Ngamotu.
The pressure on Carrington was intense: the first settlers’ ship had sailed from Plymouth on November 19 and was already en route to New Zealand. Carrington invited Barrett to join his team and about January 9, 1841, the pair arrived at Ngamotu with a party of assistant surveyors on the barque Brougham, ready to choose a site for the new town.
Carrington inspected the area around Moturoa, then set out by whaleboat to examine Waitara, rowing 5 km up the Waitara River. He returned to Wellington, determined to examine sites in the South Island before making a final decision. Barrett guided the Brougham around barren areas near Nelson, highlighting swampy areas that would be unsuited to settlement.[1] Biographer Angela Caughey claimed Barrett’s choice of locations to show Carrington was part of a strategy, motivated by self-interest, to discourage the surveyor from siting New Plymouth in that area instead of Taranaki. On January 26 Carrington informed Wakefield that despite his reservations, he had opted to site his town at Ngamotu.
He wrote to Woolcombe in Plymouth: “I have selected a place where small harbours can be easily made and with trifling expense, close to an abundance of material being on the spot … I have fixed the town between the rivers Huatoki and Henui … two or three brooks run through the town and water is to be had in any part of it. The soil, I think, cannot be better. There is much open or fern country and an abundance of fine timber.”
Carrington told Woolcombe he had wavered on the site of the town after making two forays up the Waitara River, where he discovered beautiful country. “I once had made up my mind to have the town there,” he wrote, “but the almost constant surf upon the bar has caused me to prefer this place … the New Plymouth Company has the garden of this country; all we want is labour and particularly working oxen.”
New Plymouth was laid out over 550 acres (2.2 km²), with additional rural sections proposed along the coast beyond Waitara, covering a total of 68,500 acres (274 km²). By year’s end his map of the town showed 2267 sections ready for selection by settlers, with streets, squares, hospitals, schools and parks surrounded by boulevards that separated the town from the suburban districts. For decades, however, Carrington would come under attack from settlers who thought the location of New Plymouth had been poorly chosen because of the lack of a natural harbour.
1841: The first settlers
The first of the town’s settlers arrived on the William Bryan, which anchored off the coast on March 31, 1841. In steerage were 21 married couples, 22 single adults and 70 children. George Cutfield, the head of the expedition, wrote a letter home, describing the settlement as “a fine country with a large quantity of flat land, but every part is covered with vegetation, fern, scrub and forest. The fern, on good land, is generally from four to six feet high. There are thousands of acres of this land which will require but a trifling outlay to bring into cultivation.”
Temporary housing sites had been provided on Mount Eliot (the present-day site of Puke Ariki museum), and frustrations mounted as settlers were forced to squat in homes built of rushes and sedges through winter, amid flourishing numbers of rats, dwindling food supplies and rising unease over the prospects of a repeat raid by Waikato Maori. The first suburban sections were not available until October, while those who had bought town sections were forced to wait until mid-November.
The second ship, Amelia Thompson, arrived off the Taranaki coast on September 3 and sat off shore for five weeks because its captain feared Ngamotu’s reputation as a dangerous shipping area. Its 187 passengers were helped ashore by Barrett and his men over the course of two weeks, each small boatload taking five hours to row from the vessel to the shore. The ship’s precious food cargo, including flour and salted meat, was finally brought ashore for New Plymouth’s starving residents on September 30. The loss of its baggage ship, the Regina, which was blown ashore on to a reef, contributed to New Plymouth’s reputation as a dangerous area for shipping, discouraging other vessels from berthing.
By one account, settlers were by now “moaning vociferously about having ever left England. Living was a continual battle to shield themselves against the elements and their food supplies against termites, insects and hungry animals. Drunkenness was rife among the labourers in a dreary existence with too little to do. Flour supplies had run out again and there was no likelihood of more until the next boatload of settlers arrived. Te Ati Awa, too were hungry. The co-operative ones had planted more crops than usual, to feed the coming Pakeha, but so many more Europeans had turned up than they expected, that they also were short of food.”
As summer arrived, buildings began to be erected, gardens planted and wheat sown. Other ships soon arrived to provide more labour and food supplies: the Oriental (130 passengers) on November 7, 1841; the Timandra (202 passengers) on February 23, 1842; the Blenheim (138 passengers) on November 19, 1842; and the Essex (115 passengers) on January 25, 1843, by which time the town was described as a collection of raupo and pitsawn timber huts housing almost 1000 Europeans.
1842-1866: Land disputes
As settlers arrived, they occupied allotments throughout the coast to beyond Waitara. Many had bought land from the New Zealand Company before the company had purchased the land itself. Tensions between Maori and settlers soon became evident: a party of settlers were driven from land north of the Waitara River in July 1842 and surveyors were obstructed by a group of 100 Maori in 1843.
Yet the town continued to thrive: by 1844 it had two flour mills on the Huatoki River and by 1847 it was recorded there were 841 hectares of land in cultivation.
In May 1844 William Spain, who had been appointed Land Claims Commissioner to examine New Zealand Company land claims, began inquiries in Taranaki. The company withdrew its two large land claims of 1840, restricting its claim of “legitimately purchased” land to Nga Motu. Spain ruled in its favour, endorsing its claim to 24,000 ha extending north from the Sugar Loaves, except for pas, burial places and land in cultivation (48ha), native reserves of 10 per cent of the land (2400ha), land for the Wesleyan Mission Station (40ha), and land for Barrett and his family (72ha).
On July 2 Spain wrote to Governor Robert FitzRoy advocating the imposition of a military force to persu
ade the Maori that everything was in their best interests, or as he put it, to demonstrate “our power to enforce obedience to the laws, and of the utter hopelessness of any attempt on their part at resistance …” As Spain saw it, New Zealand had been colonised for philanthropic reasons, “to benefit the Natives by teaching them the usefulness of habits of industry, and the advantages attendant upon civilisation.”
The award, wrote J.S. Tullett in his history of the city, “was received with great hostility by the Maoris”. They wrote letters of strong protest to FitzRoy, who responded with sympathy. After visiting New Plymouth in late 1844, FitzRoy formally set aside Spain’s award, acknowledging that the land had been sold without the approval of the absentees. He substituted it for a 1400ha block that became known as the “Fitzroy block”, which included the town site and only the immediate surrounding area. Many settlers who had taken up land outside the Fitzroy block were thus forced to move back within its boundaries, fostering widespread hostility towards FitzRoy.
According to the Waitangi Tribunal, the Fitzroy block deal was less a purchase than a “political settlement based on the reality that there were already settlers on the land, who had to be either accepted or driven out … (the sale was) more akin to a treaty, because Maori also imposed two significant conditions. The first was that settlers still outside the Fitzroy block would be brought back into it and the second was that the settlers would expand no further.” A 12-metre high boundary mark, known as the FitzRoy Pole, was later erected on the banks of the Waiwakaiho River to indicate the limit of Pākehā settlement.
Still, however, migrants continued to arrive. In 1847 Fitzroy’s bellicose successor, George Grey, responded to settler resentment by pressuring Te Atiawa leaders to sell more land. Firmly rebuffed, he then turned to individual Maori who were prepared to accept payment. By means of these secret deals Grey bought 10,800ha in five blocks: two were at Tataraimaka and Omata to the south-west of New Plymouth and thus beyond the scope of FitzRoy’s accord, but three were in Te Atiawa territory – the Mangorei or Grey block to the south of the Fitzroy block, plus Cooke’s Farm and the Bell Block between New Plymouth and Waitara. The sales triggered fighting among Maori sellers and non-sellers, but the Government succeeded in its aim: by 1859 it claimed to have bought a total of 30,000ha. (The New Zealand Company had surrendered its charter in July 1850, with all its land holdings passing to the Crown).
Grey’s determination to secure more land despite Maori opposition had been made clear from the outset: in an 1847 letter to his newly appointed Inspector of Police, the former Sub-Protector of Aborigines Donald McLean, he said that apart from reserves set aside for resident Maori and those returning from the south, “the remaining portion … should be resumed by the Crown for use by Europeans.”
On February 22, 1860 mounting tensions over the sale of a 600 acre (240 hectare) block of land at Waitara led to the declaration of martial law in Taranaki and three weeks later, on March 17, Governor Thomas Gore Browne ordered a military assault on Te Atiawa chief Wiremu Kingi and his people at a defensive pā. War had officially begun in Taranaki.
1860-1866: Wartime crisis
Map of New Plymouth, 1860, showing entrenchments around the town.
As more than 3500 troops poured into Taranaki, New Plymouth was transformed into a fortified garrison town. Most women and children were sent to Nelson while the men joined the military forces. For more than two years all farming was carried out under military protection, with farmers returning at nightfall to the security of the many military forts. More than 200 farms were burnt or plundered while the war raged. By July 1860 the town was reported to be in a state of siege. One soldier wrote: “The natives have come close up to the town, murdering every soul who is fool enough to go half a mile outside the ramparts.”
Disease, a result of extreme over-crowding, was rife (121 died from disease during the war, 10 times the annual average), food was scarce and the settlers were bordering on despair. There were widespread fears the town would be attacked by Maori warriors, especially when two strong pa were built within 3 km of the town. The wave of immigrants quickly evaporated. In October 1860 a settler wrote: “Little remains of the settlement of Taranaki outside the 50 acre section to which the town is reduced.”
The war ended with an uneasy truce after a year, although later skirmishes, described by some historians as a second Taranaki war, later took place.
Sourced by the encyclopedia of New Zealand and Wikipedia.
September 06 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
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