[K&CS]

This is a good site to get details of current saving rates etc in NZ.

Also, if you are tracking what experts think will happen to the dollar in the months to come, there is a good article - 'Kiwi Dollar 'catastrophe' in the making'.

Link is : http://www.interest.co.nz/coinfo/

Click on 'News'!

Craig

[Daffy]

It seems there are a few articles recently regarding the NZ ecomonic bubble bursting.

I'm a 3 years away from going if I do so just keeping an eye on things.

[Joopa]

I was shocked when I first time saw how house prices has been raising in NZ and at the same time mortage rates are outrageous :confused:

I have to admit that my view only limits to economic views in Finland, but I guess that situation is pretty much the same in all countries which use Euro.
Our mortage rate is currently only 2.6% and it hasn't changed a lot in last 3 years. This has caused naturally some heating in property markets and prices here has been raising about 5% per year. In end of November there was signs that ECB would be raising rates which immediatly slowed property markets in Finland. Not very much but agents predicted that prices will get up only 2-3% instead of 5% this year. This is just the right kind of reaction to keep markets from overheating.

In fact I realized just now that economical situation in NZ is identical to Finlands economy in the early 90's. High mortage rates, even 12%, and in the same time banks gave loans almost without any bond guarantees. Depression hit in 1992, causing 5 major banks to bankruptcy.
House markets quieted down and property values dropped dramatically. This led to hundreds of forced house sales because property value was now lower that loan amount, e.g it wasn't enough for loan guarantee.
I'm afraid that same kind of drop in house prices in NZ will cause serious troubles to many homeowners. I browsed through NZ banks websites and it seems that you can get loan for 70%-80% of house value.
Small depression and house prices will come down 10% which quickly leads to situation where your house price is less than debt to bank.


We are currently selling our house here and are planning to move to NZ in Feb-March 2006. I think that we will keep our money in Finnish bank at least a year and just see what's going to happen in NZ markets. Right now it just looks too risky to buy a house in NZ.

Hopefully you could understood even a bit about what I tried to say. This kind of text makes me to realize that my written English really sucks :laugh

[Hannah]

Joopa, your written English is spot on - don't worry!!! I have a friend from Holland who speaks better English than any English person I know - simply because she hasn't yet learnt the slang and lazy English words that so many of us use!!!