Archive for the 'New Zealand' Category
Considering a scouting trip to Nelson for Real Estate – make sure you book one of these Sunset Cruises in advance to truly appreciate what we have here. (Summer Months for the Sunset Cruise obviously)
Out celebrating an anniversary on a fantastic harbour cruise last night in Nelson, out through the Haven and out into Tasman Bay, and the weather held………..
……but as we leaving the inner Haven …….came across this interesting sight…..
She, actually she is Drumbeat….(ex Salperton) at the time she was built by Alloy Yachts back in the early 2000s one the biggest NZ had ever made….
PHOTO CREDIT – http://www.salpertonyacht.com
was hidden around the corner in a back berth at Port Nelson.
Drumbeat is available for charter at EUR€170,000 per week.
Turns out she was in NZ for some regular maintenance and while here also competed in the New Zealand Marine Cup: Kiwi Kawau Challenge, coming third.
As we came back about 2.5hrs later I asked our boats Captain about the two flashing red lights on top of the masts.
Turns out that because they are so high, way over 100ft in old terms, they need them for aircraft navigation purposes/warnings.
Kiwis really are spoilt when it comes to indulging in seaside and on-sea experiences. One of the staff members on board Yonder Star last night commented that they used to live in England and that the life they have here in Nelson now is like living a dream. New Zealands isolation and low population density sure assist with that.
And being down in the Southern Ocean sure gives us the raw material / power required from nature that sees a Kiwi sailors experience, so highly regarded around the world.
Wikipedia have the 53m Drumbeat at number 24 on this list.
Do you know which place in New Zealand has the countries Oldest Yacht Club?
Last night we were out on the Yonder Star, photo from their website above, and we both agreed – it was fabulous.
March 12 2010 | General and Nelson and New Zealand | No Comments »
11 March 2010
According to a Victoria University study published yesterday;
“Kiwi expatriates living overseas who plan to return home will do so because of New Zealand’s lifestyle.”
Utilizing data collected by the expatriate network KEA, and by analyzing a sample group of 13,000+ Kiwis residing living overseas, Dr Lindy Fursman of Victoria University’s Institute of Policy Studies wanted to explore how many Kiwi ex-pats may decide to come home, and why.
It’s interesting to note a couple of points of the study Dr Fursman discovered.
-> 57% planned a return to New Zealand in the future
-> those with higher qualifications were more likely to be planning to live overseas indefinitely
-> women were more likely to be planning to return than men
I say interesting, keeping in mind the original reason why so many (and by so many I refer to the fact that we Kiwis are the country with the 2nd highest percentage of our resident population overseas at any one time – just pipped by Ireland) Kiwis travel overseas is in usually in search of more favourable/greater work opportunities, generally with associated higher remuneration………..in all offering them ultimately a “perceived” better lifestyle.
In fact the Dr even touched on this point by mentioning;
While previous research has shown that expatriates move because of jobs and opportunities for greater incomes, New Zealand expatriates in Dr Fursman’s study planned to return to take advantage of New Zealand’s “enhanced lifestyle and culture.” Few respondents cited job, economic or income prospects as the reason or driver for coming home.
She concludes the report by making a call that further research needs to be done to ascertain what she calls “ a new measures of lifestyle.”
To explain what it is she means Dr Fursman reinforces her comment by stating;
“Current measures don’t accurately capture the factors that are important to daily living for families with children, for whom lifestyle is the primary driver bringing them home,” says Dr Fursman.
“Given that New Zealand’s competitive advantage internationally is lifestyle, we need to know how we are doing compared with other countries that New Zealand expatriates, and other migrants, favour.”
Is this type of research / info important?
Yes, most definitely.
From a Real Estate perspective I have many times in past posts reiterated my thoughts that two of the biggest primary drivers for the NZ market are Immigration & Unemployment, so no doubt then that this type of research makes a lot of sense.
Full article here.
March 11 2010 | Buyers and General and New Zealand and The Market and retirement | No Comments »
Sub-Heading: “Don ‘t show / tell them too much” that way they’ll have to phone
Got into quite a discussion with another agent re the age old debate that crops up when you talk about listings & # of photos on the internet.
Things like;
-> Only show a few photos, or even one like the $2.5m home above? so a buyer has to phone
-> Don’t publish the address, so a buyer has to phone
-> Don’t tell them the price, so a buyer has to phone
-> Use weird terms like Deadline Sale, because the general public usually don’t know what you mean, & they will call, etc, etc
This outdated mode of operation seems to be more about teasing potential buyers and they will phone, well come – maybe like in the Field of Dreams.
However I advanced that just like the Field of Dreams, Acre of Diamond, call it what you will, ………..that once you have it built, in todays crowded marketplace, you have to shout from the treetops and direct everyone to somewhere from whence they can view, at least initially, at their own time and place.
Following on from proven overseas experience it certainly seems that the richer any visually exciting photo experience is, home shoppers will be encouraged to view more details.
Crickey according to this March 2010 post on Larry’s blog, the listing agent stated this photo sold his San Clemente listing in 30 minutes, and in interesting circumstances because the buyer had already visited the property prior to seeing the photo!
In the mix it helps not to forget that your intended buyer is many times one half of a couple, and it definitely takes 2 to tango when it comes to buying a house. One buyer may be analytically inclined, whilst their partner may make most of their decisions based on initial visual inclinations. Visual always wins usually. 
How can you possibly hope to excite both partners if you have only shown a couple of photos that “you thought” showed the home in its best light.
Worse still, what options are available to you to possibly refresh a listing that’s had little buyer enquiry for a couple weeks?
Take for example the new lifestyle property listing here, it has 20 photos on realestate.co.nz and also as you can see here, another 36 odd at Open2view – all up 56 photos.
Only built in 2008, on 19.9ha, its in a lifestyle rural location, so it needs to assist folk to find it, view it, and then decide. Crucial when you’re not just around the corner.
Eagle eyed readers will note a point of difference in the Open2view photos is the inclusion of a floorplan.
At this stage the representation on realestate.co.nz just depicts that, the actual floorplan.
However if you log onto Open2view and then have a look at the floorplan here, you’ll notice a substantial difference.
Not only the locations inside and outside from where each photo was taken and the corresponding image, but also the position from where the Quicktime Virtual 360° Tours were taken – and by clicking on those icons you’ll be taken to each correspondingly relevant tour.
Tell me that this sort of visually impressive info wouldn’t be compelling to a buyer from out of town or overseas, or a UK returning ex-pat who wants to live in another part of NZ.
Quite frankly a very likely scenario for our region, as we constant get buyers locally who originally grew up in areas further south. In many cases, the big OE “drifted” into a prolonged period outside NZ (remember my earlier stats on this) however ultimately they come back. And in just as many cases because they always dreamed of wanting to live/bring up a family in the Nelson / Marlborough, “the Top of the South” they show interest in that, certainly from an initial online property search perspective.
Now the old timer though this floorplan thingie actually wasn’t a bad idea after all!
Makes you wonder where in their own mind “do they draw the line?” between this new media and what used to be the priority just 10 short years ago.
And what point is there if your potential buyer is in London, or Dubai viewing the property online at a time when you are probably asleep & your mobile turned off.
You mo as well place a banner on the add that says “Overseas Buyers – Email only.”
So at the end of the day we begged to differ in our own opinions…..and it was a river I couldn’t bridge.
March 10 2010 | Buyers and General and Nelson and New Zealand and Sellers and The Market and photography | No Comments »
Local residents discover after residing locally for a period that they indeed take a more personal interest in the area, and no where is that more apparent that in wanting to recognise our surroundings. In Nelsons particular our case, that means a lot of hills and mountains.
After all the region is world renown for its 3 main National Parks, and many accessible peaks.
One of my colleagues at work has recently taken a local helicopter tour, well 6 folk all up it was, and one of the standouts for them was landing up on Mt Starveall.
Even the chopper pilot commented that he hadn’t experienced a better weather day to land up there than that.
IMAGE CREDIT – Markus Baumann – Skylark.co.nz
While checking out some photography on Mt Starveall, like the example of the view above, I came across a website run by Markus Baumann, a local graphic designer and nature & landscape stock photographer. Markus it seems likes panoramas.
Mt Starveall is not on the range just behind Nelson in an easterly direction, its actually on the next mountain range over. That’s what helps to explains the elevation you can see in the above photo.
In fact that range thats directly behind Nelson, thats those hills with the dark green patches about centre of the above pic is the Barnicoat one.
CREDIT – Markus Baumann – Skylark.co.nz
Hmmm lets clear this up – the range directly behind Nelson (in an Easterly direction) is called the Barnicoat range and as another of his photos, above shows, it too is completely accessible as this mountain biker illustrates. He is looking out over Stoke/Tahunanui to Rabbit Island and onwards to Tasman Bay.
CREDIT – Markus Baumann – Skylark.co.nz (image size is 7200 x 585px)
So if you were curious about those peaks out there across the bay, here’s Markus detailed photo…..you’ll have to click the above photo to get it.
According to his site, www.skylark.co.nz, the mountain panorama’s viewing angle stretches roughly over 100°, from the Lookout Range in Kahurangi National Park all the way to Abel Tasman National Park, with Tasman Bay in the foreground.
And if bandwidth is not a problem then you will just have to download this photos big brother, caution its a monster at an Image Size of 30000 x 2438px & 11mb in size, but its worth it.
IMAGE CREDIT – Markus Baumann – Skylark.co.nz
Here is the another panorama taken from 1528m Mt Starveall showing and noting the other peaks up there. (you’ll need to click on it to see the full panoramic image)
Thanks again Markus for allowing me to show these photos here.
March 06 2010 | General and Nelson and New Zealand and photography | No Comments »
2nd March 2010
Realestate.co.nz releases the NZ National Property Report on the 1st of each month.
Its concise and quite informative, and offers a different view (that just pure sales data alone) on the current Real Estate market regions of NZ.
I thought I’d take a look at the inventory chart (ie; volume of weeks of stock on the market) from a Nelsonian perspective.
Why? Mainly because I was interested in the difference between the chart…….
CHART – www.realestate.co.nz Unconditional Blog
………and the numbers regarding inventory.
Now there’s a lot of green in that there chart.
I’ve been asked all month about the rising levels of inventory, its been commented on it many places this past month too, however from a Nelson perspective it was definitely not that noticeable on the ground.
CHART – realestate.co.nz data
And when I chart the individual Feb 2010 figures, the reason why becomes abundantly clear.
The numbers on the chart equal the “Number of Weeks of UnSold Housing Stock” that was on the market in February.
The Inventory metric will always be heavily influenced by the percentage of sales that takes place in that locality, but nevertheless it is good guidance.
And why is it important.
Well the volume of competition you have makes a huge difference in achieving or bettering asking prices.
Its that demand and supply equation I’ve talked about before.
Most sellers I’ve ever talked to want their own property to stand out from the rest.
To my way of thinking, that time to sell could be maximised when you have less competition, and not when you will have 4 homes in the neighbourhood of exactly the same age, similar style, size of section, etc.
Yet the other school of thought suggests that because their are more competitors on the market, then it brings out more buyers…..think the typical stereotype of the “spring market” here.
However I suggest that a close eye kept on inventory levels in your own region can’t but help in the long run.
March 02 2010 | Buyers and General and Nelson and New Zealand and Sellers and Stats / Sales Data | 1 Comment »
24th February 2010
NZ Government organisation Career Services state they are New Zealand’s leading provider of independent career information, advice and guidance.
They have just updated the “Moving to NZ” section of their website with an important new component.
Existing for quite a while now has been the section titled New to New Zealand – Information for Migrants but this has just been joined by Returning to NZ – Information for returning Kiwis, ……….post the big OE.
So if you’re a Kiwi in Dubai, Manchester, New York or Singapore and are investigating what you career options are, if you were to return to New Zealand, then next to Real Estate, this is probably the 2nd most important site to go to for a basic “heads up.”
According to the Press Release;
The new website section, ‘Returning to New Zealand’, provides advice on things such as bringing home non-Kiwi partners and children and tips on dealing with “reverse culture shock”
Ms Kosmala, who is the deputy chief executive of Career Services, commented;
….in December last year, Kiwis returning home outnumbered Kiwis leaving for overseas, according to Statistics New Zealand.
On there you’ll find info like;
if you’re eligible for a benefit /pension when you get home
checklists to prepare before you return home – the documents you’ll need when you get back to New Zealand, as well as background information on the labour market
your career options in New Zealand – gives advice about networking, attending interviews and updating your CV into a NZ style…..and more.
…..plus – just what exactly is Reverse culture shock?
February 25 2010 | Buyers and Nelson and New Zealand | No Comments »
With the byline of “find the right neighbourhood – find the right home” this site takes a very different approach to Real Estate search, and one that is indeed fascinating.
How about browsing this way…..
browse by seeing what everyone else is clicking on the most **
or by the most frequently viewed schools, maybe a good one for an executive on job transfer to a new town to check out **
…distressed homes ……”mortgagee type sales” in kiwi speak that is, this type of search could also be quite advantageous to a property investor for example **
or by just the highest price – or perhaps more importantly for many buyers…..the opposite end of the spectrum….the lowest prices in the country for example **
or by neighbourhoods, after all it is this sites catchline/motto. **
Would kiwi searchers take to this, think that some of these would be a good idea?
The site I am talking about above is called Cyberhomes.com. +++
They also feature one of my favourites, “heatmaps.”
What are heatmaps?
Heatmaps, or thematic layer maps -are data overlays that are overlaid on a map or satellite view of an area to illustrate the relationship visually.
Just as some people are “numbers” orientated, many others are visually activated.
Heatmaps aid visual clarity enormously.
I find them very important for visual spotting of trends / information that a mere list or graph cannot. They are used famously in the share-market.
One other thing I do like as a real estate browser is this, the ability to create your own homepage.
Why?
Well because it makes a lot of sense to have all your favourite searches, distressed/mortgagee sales, relevant real estate browsing all on the one dashboard screen, set-up for a speedy quick once over glance.
And having the ability to add or remove different sections will help to make your ongoing real estate search so much more efficient …….fruitful I’d say.
Bit of a co-incidence here, but I’ve just noticed McGraths too, have a similar feature, as arrowed above.
Only thing is, unlike realestate.co.nz, McGraths don’t actually show or tell you the number of visitors.
To me that’s necessary from a transparency point of view, and like you can on realesatate.co.nz, it would be beneficial to see what the daily makeup is, and where those visitors come from. In that case, I think the counter on realestate.co.nz, clickable if you weren’t already aware, is a big step up in comparision.
I should mention I note another Auckland website have added a small link on their sidebar as seen above for a “1 click” through to view Mortgagee sales. Speeds the process up doesn’t it, when its a trending search I’d say?
You mightn’t think a list of most popular homes viewed would be important?
However when placed in the context of seeing that same list of data, visually……….
MAP CREDIT – Google
…….the picture is a lot clearer.
Were you to be a seller looking at placing your home on the market, and were still undecided about what time of year/season to do so, then a look at a map like this showing the most popular properties are actually in your immediate neighbourhood could assist you greatly in making up your mind. At least the data is telling you where the buyer activity is right now.
So overall, it looks like searching for real estate will get better.
** one issue I see is that in some of these based on clicks/views models you would need some form of protection to reduce the possibility of fraud, perhaps only registering one click per day/per IP address or so…..that way hopefully discouraging a home owner from artificially inflating the amount of clicks their home registers, or even to the extent that a school may get all pupils to click once from their school / home pc’s on that school – again potential erroneously inflating its rating.
+++ – problems they have – seems to be a few errors on the site today – but the concept is great.
February 15 2010 | Buyers and New Zealand and Technology and The Market | No Comments »
Most times Real Estate portals/search interfaces have to be “everything to everybody”…….
I had previously mentioned what a refreshing change then to be greeted with this……
CREDIT – http://www.mcgrath.com.au/
Very refreshing for a Real Estate homepage in Oceania, and in my last post I’d asked…………….
Were there are a couple of “got ya’s” here that an Kiwi or Aussie can deny? The term OE springs to mind.
Studies still show, that second to Ireland, Kiwis presently have the highest percentage of their residential population offshore.
That’s probably not exactly dissimilar to the Aussie situation either.
So to my way of thinking, most anyone downunder would have an instant recognition factor with the above screenshot?
There must be hundreds if not thousands of ex-pats (in a born in NZ sense) that are residing in the UK …….for Aussie’s …….multiply that even more.
Frankly because the site is not trying to be a Yahoo or Google to everyone they intelligently only have one section that “moves” or changes.
There’s enough info / colour on the landing page to keep a browser there for 10 seconds, which is all it takes before that image section rotates to ask a different emotional question?
And because it seems to move/change so often a browsers eyes can’t help but be drawn to it, It wouldn’t surprise me if someone in Johns web team has studied this eye movement/page recognition flow either.
IMAGE CREDIT -google.com
Crucially it’s not even in the top left of your screen, like everyone says it should be…..and that’s great because that’s what everyone else is doing………(remember my post a short time ago about how incredibly successful some contrarian believers have been) so you land on CNN, BBC, ABC News, Yahoo-Xtra……..etc ………….you start to get attuned to that expectation that all the action happens in the top left hand side of your browser page……and then this site has the action, in the top right hand side.
What’s neat here is that it doesn’t really matter which of these icons/lifestyle patterns you click on, you’re taken to the next panel/page………..and in every case you’re always taken to the exactly same Page 1.
This one…….
Frankly no browser will even know any different, because I suspect only 2-5% may backtrack anyway.
Check out the options available……and just for a moment think about it…………would you be tempted to click on one of these……..or would you still want to fill out 3-4-5 boxes and 4 drop down categories to your search for an ideal property.
To be frank ….you probably would click on one of these wouldn’t you?
If for nothing other than to see what the result is. …… just “one click” away?
Which brings me another site that offered another enlightening approach to Real Estate Search……
Part III continues
February 13 2010 | Buyers and New Zealand and Technology and The Market | No Comments »
On behalf of a friend looking for a Sydney property, this week I found myself checking out the website of McGraths Real Estate in Sydney.
I suggest, one of Australia’s most recent forward thinking, successful and invigorating agencies – principal John McGrath has also penned written a book, or two in his time as well as being an inspirational speaker.
Usually when I click on these sites, it’s within 15 seconds that I click “off them” to run on to something else.
What stopped me in my tracks this last week on browsing was something I hadn’t seen before.
The above screenshot is what I saw.
What Kiwi or Aussie can’t be empathetic to that photo – we all know what it represents don’t we?
………..Emotion.
You know I’ve offered up the following question many times before………..
Do people buy houses emotionally or logically?
So what was next?
I was curious, so I clicked.
And I thought to myself, quite a novel approach.
Here’s the homepage at McGraths so you see for yourself.
That word again…..emotion.
And smartly enough the rotation of these photos like shown in the above screenshots seem to change quite quickly.
You know what……….it doesn’t always seem to me that people buy logically… from experience, so many times I have been in a situation where after the buyer has told me what they want/desire in a property…….I’ve made the appt to visit them in their own “prior to purchase” residence (which I like to do because more than anything this should give you insights into the type of new property they are looking for……and even more so….…will tell you things that differ from what they have even told you they want/must have) that I have recognized parts of their living environment that seem to be “at odds” with what they have mentioned to be desirous in their new residence.
Obviously then, as a professional I would be remiss if I didn’t take that into the equation.
Must admit here though, that the one and only most important time when this is not true……well that’s when two people are moving apart…..even I’ll admit it’s a bit hard to judge at that stage.
Obviously at the end of the day you, as a Real Estate Marketer …….you are there to facilitate……..you show a buyer what they have told you they want………..hmmm and then your intuition kicks in…………and says, why don’t you show them this & this because you know they won’t be unhappy with it.
More than likely that’s when you hear the “…but they showed me this place and it wasn’t anything like what I told them…….” comment.
Let me tell you from past experience in 75% of cases…….emotion kicks in……and people buy a particular property for something that doesn’t appear logical at all.
Frankly that’s where buyers of For Sale By Owners can miss out.
They just don’t understand that as an agent who has seen hundreds / thousands of homes …….you actually are in the box seat to direct/find them the home of their dreams.
But as they are intent on saving $2-3-4,000 for their “future” that they will probably never ever know what they missed out on……..or that their dream home was just 1-2-3 home inspections away.
In other words because they brought privately to save $$$, bypassing contact with an agent, they have possibly missed out on something that logically wasn’t on their list for inspecting, but with an agents experience, could have been shown a property that was “just off their centre line” and moreover “exactly what they wanted.”
This is especially the case when the homes haven’t even been advertised to the whole market/general public…..a situation that has presented itself twice this past week, just to our own Stoke office alone. Sorry what I meant to say twice this week those homes have had multi-offers…….and have already sold..….so the first notice that most buyers will have is showing up to the Open for Inspection (Open Home in NZ) on Sunday to see a SOLD sticker across the sign.
So many times Real Estate portals/search interfaces attempt to be “everything to everybody”….after all I guess in appealing to the masses, which is what they have todo today in a fiscal sense, they probably don’t have a lot of choice other than to do exactly that.
This website was…..refreshing.
And interestingly enough there are a couple of “gotch ya’s” here that no Kiwi or Aussie can deny.
Why Kiwis and Aussies?
Part II will continue soon…..
February 12 2010 | Buyers and New Zealand and Technology and The Market | No Comments »
12th February 2010
Well it can be said we didn’t start 2010 off with a bang, house sales wise.
I only sold 2 for the month.
Today REINZ (Real Estate Institute of NZ) released the official figures for Jan 2010 sales.
I guess a couple of take outs from their press release were;
Total residential dwelling sales plummeted last month to their lowest level in nearly two decades
and….according to Peter McDonald, Real Estate Institute of New Zealand President …….
“Activity in the residential property market was quiet last month on the back of uncertainty over what actions the Government intended to take on the recently announced tax working group recommendations”
A severe lack of new stock hitting the market played “yo/yo” with the market figures.
After being up 14% last month it will be interesting to see what the official Real Estate Institute figures reveal about Jan 2010.
Lots of red this month and no green at all.
During January the local Nelson Property market saw just 62 residential sales, compared to 68 residential sales in Jan 2009.
The above chart would seem to indicate a reduction of the difference between valuation and sell price, with a slight gap showing between asking price and selling price. My thoughts on this are this – we’ve just had our 3 yearly update by QV on local CV’s – and when that happens, and quite a few home owners find their property has been valued quite favourable, may just use that as the trigger they have been waiting for to go to market. That said, a touch of reality usually sets in some time later, and I forward to you, that is certainly what the above shart shows.
After being up last month, the median price for a Nelson Council zone house dropped to $315,000 in Jan 2010. (December 2009: $355,000; Jan 2009: $320,000).
“Days taken to Sell” ramped up to an unusual, for Nelson, 62 days, in comparison to 59 days last January, and just 28 days in Dec 2009.
CHART – click on above for larger version
Sections tapered off, but 8 sold in Jan 2010 for a median price of $187,500, and with a median size of 718m2.
The national sales trends don’t really point in a decisive direction.
In todays release, the REINZ said officially of Nelson;
61 houses sold in Nelson City in January (December 2009: 81; January 2009: 68). The median price decreased to $315,000 (December 2009: $355,000; January 2009: $320,000).
The median price for a Nelson Council zone house was down at $342,000 in January (December 2009: $367,500; January 2009: $316,500). 111 houses sold (December 2009: 128; January 2009: 114).
Again like last month, and illustrating our predominantly family market, 38 x 3 bedroom homes sold, near on 56% of the units by percentage for the month.
Full report here.
Full statistics here.
February 12 2010 | Buyers and Nelson and New Zealand and Sellers and Stats / Sales Data | No Comments »
Next »
.jpg)
