Housing bubble round 2

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, June 13th, 2012 - 27 comments
Categories: housing - Tags:

Another housing bubble. Just what we need. House prices up 5.4% in a year, 7.8% in Auckland. Inflation is 1.6%.

Billions are being funneled into housing by banks who can make a buck off importing cheap credit from offshore and lend it to homebuyers here. There’s no real sources of income growth for them, so they’re pumping another housing bubble.

Just puts housing further out of reach for the rest of us. Businesses are still finding capital too expensive.

It couldn’t happen without the tax advantages that housing investment enjoys. The government could act. But this is National, does anyone expect solutions from them anymore?

27 comments on “Housing bubble round 2 ”

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  1. ianmac 1
    13 June 2012 at 10:54 am

    And wasn’t NZs major debt problem in housing (and farming)? Just what is the Government doing to make housing affordable yet not a debt burden?
    Round and round and round and….

  2. mickysavage 2
    13 June 2012 at 10:56 am

    Don’t worry.  The Market will solve this for us …

  3. Carol 3
    13 June 2012 at 10:58 am

    Those images are too small for my eyes.

    But I heard something of this on RNZ-National this morning.

    When are people going to start moving away from this nonsense about everyone owning their own home? Whatever happened to the intense debate between leasehold and freehold in the 19th century NZ?

    http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-DruSedd-t1-body-d18.html

    Owning your own home only benefits those at the top of the housing pyramid. Those further down will always be at risk of losing everything in periods of economic contraction. It creates wealth for the few, masks the insecurity of the many, and is fueling property speculation that is damaging to us all.

  4. vto 4
    13 June 2012 at 11:01 am

    When the financial and banking ponzi scheme that is fractional reserve banking finally reaches its end point, as it is in Greece, Spain, everywhere, then there will be the most spectacular fall ever in house values.

    Coming soon to a neighbourhood near you.

  5. tsmithfield 5
    13 June 2012 at 11:32 am

    “Don’t worry.  The Market will solve this for us …”

    Absolutely it will. You might not like the solution the market provides though. Take a look at Spain for example. 

    • bbfloyd 5.1
      13 June 2012 at 11:50 am

      i think your sarcasm meter has run dry TS….. recharge it, and read the comment again….

  6. lprent 6
    13 June 2012 at 12:06 pm

    Interesting – why are you all writing these comments in the image ‘post’ ?

    [lprent: Fixed. There was a image from 2009 with the same slug as this post. I changed the slug and moved the comments out of a 2009 timewarp.

    Now I have to figure out how to prevent
    a. that naming conflict
    b. comments being left on image ‘pages’ ]

  7. tsmithfield 7
    13 June 2012 at 12:12 pm

    VTO “When the financial and banking ponzi scheme that is fractional reserve banking finally reaches its end point, as it is in Greece, Spain, everywhere, then there will be the most spectacular fall ever in house values.
    Coming soon to a neighbourhood near you.”

    A price bubble in anything is simply a signal that demand is exceeding supply for a given product. In the case of housing, the best way a government/local government can reduce the likelihood of bubbles is to ensure the supply of land available for building is always matching demand. This means  that prices should stay constant other than for adjustments due to changes in building costs.
     

    • vto 7.1
      13 June 2012 at 12:33 pm

      Yes you’r right, but only to an extent. The market in property operates not just on the basis of the supply and demand for land, it also operates on the supply and demand of money. Money printed out of thin air every time a loan is made.

      Now think on this for a minute – imagine if thin-air money was no longer available, or, that debt availability simply reduced to near nil. In his situation the only money available would be money in existence right now. No debt. What do you think would happen to property values? And what do you think would happen to the boom-bust cycles? Would they be as large and volatile as they are now? Imagine a world where you could only buy property with cash and no debt.

      Imo, a version of this is right on our doorstep and about to knock knock knock – the big bad wolf is about to blow the house in.

  8. Johnm 8
    13 June 2012 at 12:14 pm

    Here we go again, we give wealth speculators a free way to dominate a social common good and continue to make Housing unaffordable for our young people. Disgusting! Could be so easily stopped with a 80% capital gains tax (Backdated for 10 years)or simply stop it through law. But the wealthy of NZ don’t want that scam stopped and National + Labour are in on it as well. When I first bought a 3 bedroom house in 1981 I was getting a salary of $10,000 a year and I bought a 20 year old house near the centre of Wellington on a huge section for only $32,000.! NZ was a great country then and had lots of work. After that the word went out: Buy Property, Buy Property etc. it’s the path to wealth get the wage slaves to pay off your mortgage and cash in the self bidded up capital gain! Disgusting! What a selfish Act Party bunch we have become.

  9. tsmithfield 9
    13 June 2012 at 12:49 pm

    “Money printed out of thin air every time a loan is made.”

    What happens is the bank advances funds against an asset, that being a mortgage in which the funds advanced are returned over time with interest. So it is not quite accurate to say the money is printed out of thin air. The initial advance might be. But, so long as the borrower is reliable then the money advanced is returned to the bank as real money.

    VTO “Now think on this for a minute – imagine if thin-air money was no longer available, or, that debt availability simply reduced to near nil. In his situation the only money available would be money in existence right now. No debt. What do you think would happen to property values? And what do you think would happen to the boom-bust cycles? Would they be as large and volatile as they are now? Imagine a world where you could only buy property with cash and no debt.”

    What could happen, and is already happening to an extent, is that more stable banks such as those in NZ will be preferred by investors than those in dodgy places such as Spain. Thus, the availability of money could increase here, driving down interest rates and expanding the price bubble. Look at the price war on now with interest rates as evidence of this. Could be very tough for Spain but good for us.

    VTO “Would they be as large and volatile as they are now? Imagine a world where you could only buy property with cash and no debt.”

    If you want to explore this theory a bit further, you need to ask yourself the question “what is cash?”

    • AAMC 9.1
      13 June 2012 at 1:00 pm

      “so long as the borrower is reliable”

      there you have it, Spain was pretty happy with where it was at when all that cheap money was flooding it’s way. Yes, the built an oversupply of property, but it was the credit crunch that got them.

      So when credit crunches later this year in England, Europe inevitably falls apart, Argentina continues it’s slide, China buys less of Australia’s shit, India slows, America returns to recession when they stop manipulation currency and figures after the election…. you really think we in our little old economy, so tied to all of theirs, will still be able to afford property we bought for 2.6 mill in Grey Lynn? Just cause there aren’t many other houses to buy.

      Anyway, people I know trying to sell property outside of the hot spots are already experiencing deflation or a total lack of demand.

    • mike e 9.2
      13 June 2012 at 1:29 pm

      not so fast the silly monetarist our new property bubble will burst sooner than later.
      Already the big banks are being very careful.
      The number of mortgagee sales have sky rocketed in the last 6 months.
      Not enough houses are being built in Auckland no property developer wants to take risks in such a volatile market.
      With further bad news on way unemployment will rise as this govt muddle through with no plan for the future.Replay David Schillings interview RNZ

    • mike e 9.3
      13 June 2012 at 1:31 pm

      not so fast the silly monetarist our new property will burst sooner than later.
      Already the big banks are being very careful.
      The number of mortgagee sales have sky rocketed in the last 6 months.
      Not enough houses are being built in Auckland no property developer wants to take risks in such a volatile market.
      With further bad news on the way unemployment will rise as this govt muddle through with no plan for the future.Replay David Schillings interview RNZ

    • mikesh 9.4
      13 June 2012 at 2:04 pm

      “What happens is the bank advances funds against an asset, that being a mortgage in which the funds advanced are returned over time with interest. So it is not quite accurate to say the money is printed out of thin air. The initial advance might be. But, so long as the borrower is reliable then the money advanced is returned to the bank as real money”

      When the loan is repaid the repayment simply cancels the original debt, so no “real money” comes into existence.

      • tsmithfield 9.4.1
        13 June 2012 at 2:17 pm

        The “plus interest” does.

      • AAMC 9.4.2
        13 June 2012 at 2:50 pm

        Real money, whats that?

        So if there is a credit crunch and a string of bankruptcy as a byproduct of affordability, a whole bunch of ponzi wealth disappears. Cause the liquidity that isn’t created as TARP or QE or LTRO or TWIST (which is used to prop up insolvency and to speculate on derivatives and commodities) is the byproduct of over inflated asset prices, inflated by debt creation, not by wage growth and productivity.

  10. AAMC 10
    13 June 2012 at 12:52 pm

    “A price bubble in anything is simply a signal that demand is exceeding supply for a given product.”

    Asset inflation benefits banks as it allows them to create money through the debt they issue against new mortgages, and so a bubble will inflate beyond or at least distort supply and demand. A house is worth as much as a bank will lend you to buy it.

    Auckland has an oversupply of housing which is continuing to push prices up, but these prices are totally out of whack with affordability, the third factor. People are being layed off, wages suppressed, all over the show. As the global economy continues to tank, unemployment grows, Britain, Canada and Australia see their bubble pop, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a correction in our housing even if the continues to be an under-supply.

    We can’t sustain these levels of private debt, not matter the cost of building materials.

    • vto 10.1
      13 June 2012 at 1:01 pm

      ” A house is worth as much as a bank will lend you to buy it.”

      That is one of the best nutshells I have seen in a long while. Well done AAMC.

      I think it’s time for a walk in the sun.

      • AAMC 10.1.1
        13 June 2012 at 2:30 pm

        very likely came out of Steve Keens mouth, have you all heard this one from him?

  11. tracey 11
    13 June 2012 at 3:40 pm

    The elephant in the housing market room are aucklands unsaleable leaky homes. Apparently about 120,000 homes are essentially out of the market. No one likes to mention this part of the property problem in auckland. Most of these cant sue anyone and dont have money for the fix so their homes continue to rot

    • AAMC 11.1
      13 June 2012 at 4:39 pm

      And a demographic bulge, who are the baby boomers going to sell their assets to when they want to liquidate them to fund retirement?

  12. Herodotus 12
    13 June 2012 at 9:33 pm

    The banks are estimating that housing inflation will continue to rise
    https://www.mortgagewarehouse.co.nz/news/westpac-weekly-commentary-14-may-2012
    Councils are doing their bit in assisting the lack of zoned land: delaying plan change hearings, not building infrastructure to allow development to progress, planners designing rules that are not supported by the community, Watercare, lack of vision by councils and central govt !!
    Unfortunately (bar those unfortunate to have or are owing a leaky home ) we have not seen any real correction from the last housing bubble, so with this one starting to inflate there is potential for a major correction, especially should rates do what we saw in 07-08. Inflation at 2% and interest rates @ 10.4%. But on the bright side as long as we have jobs we will continue to be enslaved to the banks as they continue to lend.
    Capital gains Tax is not the golden bullet to solve the housing bubble either.

  13. Fortran 13
    14 June 2012 at 2:10 pm

    Actually only 31% of Houses in New Zealand have a Mortgage.
    Say max 700,000 properties only.
    Which is why the banks fight so viciously on interest rates to get business.
    Anybody buying on today’s rates should be very very careful because rates will go up again.
    This may take 12/24 months and a jump from 5.99% currently for one year could go to 7% quite quicky as the banks results deteriorate. suddenly the payments get larger and less afordable.

    • Dv 13.1
      14 June 2012 at 2:17 pm

      >>>Actually only 31% of Houses in New Zealand have a Mortgage.

      That seems low?
      Source?