New Zealand Median Prices

Hi Kiwi Fulla

Have you checked the KPI magazine. They have heaps of interesting statistics every month.

Shar

aussieemail,

I’m in Dunedin at the moment. I spent a day looking at properties here. Although it’s a beautiful city (I love the place!!), returns are not that great. It is hard to get 8% deals here. However, if cashflow isn’t your game and you prefer capital growth, I say there are great opportunities here in Dunedin.

I’d book a flight over here and look around yourself, because you won’t truly appreciate the beauty of the place until you do!

Regards,
Ozi

I have been investing in Auckland for nearly 20 years and I got tired of relying on the flawed median house price data due to it’s consistent inaccurate indication of house price trends…

If it’s of any interest I spent over 2 years and a serious cash investment to create a new house price index (The ‘Hybrid Index’) for 41 areas in Auckland, 24 areas of Wellington and 19 in Christchurch.

The Hybrid index (launched Nov 2004) is based on actual sales data (sourced from a government owned enterprise – QV) for the last 14 years and gives the most accurate measure of localised house price movements ever available in NZ.(that’s not just my personal opinion but shared by some of NZ’s leading economists)

We use the index to answer the age old question of ‘where to buy’.

The reasons I created the index were:

1) I was tired of having to rely on inaccurate data like medians and averages to assess historic capital growth rates (these can easily give a distorted view).

2) My statisticians needed the most accurate records available so they could then create meaningful forecasts of potential capital growth rates in specific areas to identify potential capital growth ‘hotspots’.

3) I had a commercial reason too, as my company now produces quarterly ‘Property Hotspots’ reports to give historic capital growth data (for 10 years) and then forecasts out for 1-2 years of expected capital growth rates (we will be producing longer forecasts as we further develop our forecasting model). Our forecasts are not just based on historic rates of growth but also influenced by the current phase of the property cycle that the area is experiencing. If you want more details see http://www.propertyhotspots.co.nz

The net effect of this innovation is now I and my clients can get the most accurate historic data ever available plus some insight into where to buy next to hopefully maximise our returns.

I have already had feedback of success stories based on our identified hotspots.

I’m sorry but I can’t disclose our current hotspots as we don’t make this info available free because I am tied to a royalty arrangement with my data suppliers and my company has also invested a large amount to create and maintain the index hence it’s commercial application.

“Make sure you can survive the downside, and the upside will take care of itself!” Donald Trump