Knight Frank have just released their latest Global House Price Index, this one covering Q1 2009.
It shows NZ’s performance in the house price movement as about middle of the pack and certainly not as volatile as others.
In fact if you go to the report on their site here, you’ll see the Qtr on Qtr figures and in many cases they make for somber observations.
For many ex-pat Kiwis they may reconsider their current property investment strategy, and ponder whether the home grass is definitely greener than where they are now.
In slightly related news, Australian serviced office company Servcorp has just published the results of a survey 7500 international business folk from 24 nations. They asked them to identify which countries they believe are surviving the crisis the best, with the outcome that our cousins across the ditch topped the poll. NZ was 9th.
And as a Nelsonian…..well in Nelson, we too are middle of the pack as far as NZ is concerned. The latest REINZ compiled data shows that our region has tracked closer to the NZ median for the past 12mths than any other region in the country….more evidence of our stable local regional market I would say.
KNIGHT FRANK SOURCE DATA Nick Barnes, Residential Research, Knight Frank / Niki Riley, Press Office, Knight Frank
May 28 2009 | New Zealand and The Market | No Comments »
As can be seen from the below graphic Baby Boomers will continue to make up a larger percentage of our population for the next two decades at least. (Data from 2006 Census)
On the whole our population is not expected to grow by more than 30 ~ 40% (in a best case) or by no more at all in a most bearish view forward.
With the amount of boomers retiring, normally or earlier, and alongside the growing movement towards seeking out a fulfilling lifestyle pre-official retirement age, I for one find it hard to believe that locally our population won’t increase considerably, and spill over into the neighbouring Tasman District also.
Take for example the Ernest Rutherford retirement home which started selling its stand-alone 2 bedroom brick townhouses (still part of the overall complex) at the beginning of 2008 and now just over a year later is nudging the order book on number 90 of those units. (original plans were for just 64)
As can be seen here, the overall trend is towards an aging population locally, although as the top chart shows, the 40-54yr category also displays an increase, although not as prominent as the more senior 55yr+ age group sector.
One could suggest that after recent events of the past decade or 15 years, the Share Market, Internet, and Property bubbles so to speak, that an aging population have decided to consolidate their wealth in property, and certainly there’s no shortage of anecdotal evidence in NZ that may suggest just that.
In fact after reading that potentially 30% of retirees from certain countries have no nest egg left, and have everything tied up in their personal home, is it any wonder the continuing fascination with property. And for many, they may just find that the grass is no longer greener financially offshore.
Continuing in the theme of many NZ provincial towns, we see an exodus of young folk either just entering the workforce, or those moving away to attend university / higher educational institutions, and in many cases then going on to seek work in the bigger cities here and overseas. However one thing that is quite apparent on the above graphic is the reasonably large percentage of our local populace in that 40 year old age group category.
For many in this age group (40’s category) the realization of life values, whether because of their older siblings / parents or children of their own, starts to become a more important element of their human makeup. I believe this goes partly to help explain our regional populace age makeup, and certainly partly explains why our region is a drawcard for those seeking to discover those values.
Further on the exodus of younger folk, examine and compare the chart above to this one of Auckland below.
Good thing is, courtesy of Statistics NZ you can visit the site mentioned in the SOURCE link below, download the excellent Excel spreadsheet and conduct data analysis on your own region of NZ if you want.
SOURCE DATA – courtesy of Local Population Trends Spreadsheet here at Statistics New Zealand
May 28 2009 | Nelson | No Comments »
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