Geektastic:sir1963:Regs:mattwnz:Geektastic:
I will also add that there are many people in NZ, judging from newspaper comments etc, who appear convinced a CGT will be some sort of magic bullet for housing prices..
Yes of course CGT will not affect house prices one little bit. That was just politcal spin to try and make it an emotional decision. The problem with house prices is supply of land, complaince costs, building costs, building material monopolies/duopolies , overpriced labour and shoddy workmanship which often means things need doing multiple times etc. So it is a range of different things
you missed one of the biggest factors, imo, in your list of reasons for unaffordability.... "keeping up with the joneses". Far too many people keep 'upgrading' their houses, and moving neighbourhoods, as income rises (or not).
The other big issue is the costs of buying and selling.
A friend in the UK who sold his house paid 0.75% to the real-estate agent, and that included advertising.
Buy a house here and you need to 6% to cover them and the lawyers fees when you sell.
Realestate fees are a blatant rip off, out of the 3 "professionals" involved (lawyers, Building inspectors, realestate agents) the real-estate agent make the most money and yet is the least qualified.
I can confirm that.
When we sold our flat in the UK we sold it for the equivalent (at the exchange rate of the time) of $700,000 and paid the equivalent of $2000 in agents and solicitors fees, including all the advertising costs.
When we sold our first NZ house for $650,000 we paid over $25,000 in fees!! At that rate an agent only need sell 4 houses a year to make a decent income.
Considering most agents here appear to be numpties who add little or no value to the process it astonishes me that they have the brass neck to charge so much.
The Real estate company gets 50%, the agent 50%.
We had our property up for a private sale. An overseas couple who rented in the area saw this and went to a real-estate agent.
The agent asked if they could show them through the house, "OK", then I was told I would have to sign an agreement, "No"
They then erase everything about fees and replaced with "Negotiable" and said this covers their liability (i.e. breaking something), so "OK"
They came with an offer, and we negotiated the price.
At then end we made an agreement, then I said "Fees, $1000 should cover it, thats about $400/hr", they said they could not do it for less than $10,000.
"Bye" , they got nothing.
Sold it through a different agent for $5000 inc GST etc.
Trusted
