Tag Archives: Housing

Prime Minister John Key is confident the country’s lenders are strong enough to weather a downturn in Auckland if the property market in New Zealand’s biggest city has a correction. The country’s major lenders have assured Key their stress testing shows their respective loan books are strong enough to withstand a drop in Auckland property prices, which has been singled out …

The Chinese government has its eye on an unknown number of New Zealand-resident Chinese citizens who are thought to have established themselves here with funds obtained through corrupt practices, the Prime Minister, John Key, says.  The issue came up in talks between Key and the Chinese president, Xi Xinping, during his three-day state visit to New Zealand last month and …

The government’s plan to increase the private provision of state-housing is part of a wider goal to alleviate the country’s most vulnerable by putting more cash in their pockets, Prime Minister John Key says. Speaking at his weekly post-Cabinet press conference in Wellington, Key told reporters the government expects to provide more details about its social housing programme in the …

Fletcher Building has won a contract to build 237 homes on an 11.5-hectare Crown-owned site in Christchurch, including 89 which will be priced below $400,000, Housing Minister Nick Smith said. Construction is expected to begin by the end of the year at a build rate of 10 homes a month and a completion date of 2017, Smith said in a statement. The land …

Wall Street advanced, up more than 1 percent, amid better-than-expected data on existing US home sales, and solid corporate earnings including from Apple. In afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.13 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 1.61 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 1.90 percent. Gains in shares of Chevron and …

Summerset Group Holdings, New Zealand’s third-largest listed retirement village operator, said the first 14 homes in its $55 million New Plymouth retirement village will be completed next month, with residents expected to move in before Christmas. The Wellington-based company plans to build about 150 units on the 4-hectare Carrington Road site ranging from townhouses and villas to care apartments and rooms. …

Auckland house prices rose for a third month in July as listings and sales jumped, according to Barfoot & Thompson, the city’s biggest realtor. The average sale price rose 0.7 percent to $654,379 last month, adding to a 0.8 percent gain in June, the firm said. The median price fell to $585,000 from $590,000. A shortage of new homes in …

New Zealand new home building consents fell in June though the decline wasn’t enough to prevent growth in the second quarter from reaching a five-year high, government figures show. New dwelling consents fell 4 percent, seasonally adjusted, in June from May, when they gained 1 percent, according to Statistics New Zealand. The latest two months followed a 21 percent surge …

Surging prices for Auckland and Christchurch real estate do not constitute a housing market bubble because bank lending volumes have been plummeting for the last two months, says the executive director of the New Zealand Bankers Association, Kirk Hope. Political debate has raged this week over the impact on first home buyers if the Reserve Bank of New Zealand imposes …

New Zealand property values rose at a 7.6 percent annual pace last month, as demand continued to outstrip supply in Auckland and Christchurch, according to state valuer Quotable Value. Property values stepped up the pace from last month when they increased at a 7.1 percent annual rate, also driven by demand in Auckland and Christchurch. Values increased 2.8 percent in …