As in all things. it's better to be lucky than smart. I fell backwards into a good financial position.
I looked at my 2020 predictions, when Covid was just getting started. Wow was I wrong.
Airbnb properties would flood the market increasing supply- Student apartments would be sold off, so again more supply
- Tourism‑dependent towns would see forced sales (in 2020)
- House prices would drop below QV
- Dunedin and Palmerston North would fall due to fewer students
- Rotorua and Queenstown would fall due to tourism collapse
- General nationwide price declines by May 2020
Most glaringly my house price bubble prediction was wrong. NZ house prices surged. Prices rose 28% in 2021 alone. That's the fastest annual increase in NZ history.
Re Airbnb, I was correct that many converted to long‑term rentals ... but ... the number of AirBNB, now rentals, wasn't enough to loosen rental supply. Rents were pushed up
In summary: New Zealand is a highly leveraged housing markets, Changes in the cost and availability of credit dominate factors that seem intuitively more important.
French La chance vaut parfois mieux que le savoir: Chance can sometimes be worth more than knowledge.
