Archive for May 29th, 2009

How much can a Farm Tractor really be worth?

Well, courtesy of the internet and the Trademe auction site , it could be said we town folk have got more of an idea these past 2 weeks of the value of a tractor, surely more than its start price of $1 though.

Growing up the only name I knew was Massey Fergusson.

Those cold hard tractor seats at the local playground had the name mentioned around them. Even in its infancy, and even in provincial NZ, corporate sponsorship was making inroads then!

Today, courtesy of things like Discovery Channel we learn about the others, names like CLAAS, IHC John Holland, some big CASE units, John Deere, amongst others.

And so it was, last week the NZ media did have a bit of a field day when an auction was held as follows…

Buy a Tractor and get a 20 acre (or 80937 m2) farm for free…

with the following result…..

which, surprise, surprise (well its not everyone that places a bid for $250k is it?, last time I looked that wasn’t the available credit balance in my bank account anyway) eventuated in the buyer not being able to complete the sale.

In fact it was almost pretold here on this website that this sort of outcome was the most probable, and not exactly unexpectable (even though, after 2 confirming phone calls from the auction site representatives to the leading bidder thought otherwise…..pertinent piece mentioned here in the last comment of this article).

So guess what happens the next week …..deja vu!

Only this time, its in our region, the Top of the South, and a local entrepreneur decides to follow up the idea by going down the “tried and tested” tractor path, only this time, as you can see from the photo, the tractor pictured looks just a bit different.

Well there’s no reason to give away a full blown real tractor now, is there?

The result so far…….

With the developer turning a Nelsonians Eye, and much to the ???? of previous purchasers in this same subdivision who originally paid amounts over $100,000 for their similar sized sections, it looks like the new buyer will, on current bids, quite possibly bag a bargain. All I can say is, Good Luck in the bidding.

May 29 2009 | Nelson | No Comments »

Low Housing Consent tally for Nelson

Statistics NZ have just published the latest housing consent numbers, up to April 2009.

Although Napier & Northland seem to be on a bit of a roll, all other regions in the main have reported much lower consents than 12 months ago.

Although noting that the overall declining trend is abating, they point out that consents approved for April 2009 (excluding apartment units) show the number of new housing units to be at a very low historical figure.

You’ll notice that the above graphic excludes apartment sales, and even though this part of the mix was a standout compared to the 2008 consent numbers it wasn’t really that relevant in provincial regions.

Statistic NZ said as much in the article…

Movements in the regional results for the monthly series should be treated with caution.

There were a high number of apartments authorised in April 2008, which was the highest monthly total since March 2005. The regions most affected by this were Auckland and Wellington.

The low levels reported today are the lowest since they began tracking dwelling consent approvals back in Jan 92, and furthermore, that since mid 2007, they have overall fallen back by about half.

SOURCE – Statistics NZ

May 29 2009 | General and New Zealand and Stats / Sales Data and The Market | No Comments »