Comments on: Be careful who you listen to

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 11 May 2009 05:54:49 +0000

Hmmm….interesting comments hope you are all reading the doom merchants over at http://www.interest.co.nz. Would agree that a flatten is occurring and arguably there is activity in certain price/area but am being offered a lot of “soon to be mortgagee” mostly from business failure…..anyone else getting this and are we heading into the winter of discontent?

By: Hamish

Hamish — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:54:10 +0000

Don’t forget nobody, even somebody who is well educated, can look into the future.

By: Ted Grenfell

Ted Grenfell — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:18:50 +0000

We’re investors ourselves and only in rental property. No shares or anything else. Have also been reading Mary’s columns for some time now and respect her views. We don’t neccessarily agree with them all but we’ve not come away with the impression that she’s commenting with any particular bias.

Never listened to the other unnamed parties. Is obvious they’ve a vested interest in what they’re saying and I rely instead more on bank commentary, the advise of our mortgage broker and our accountant.

By: John

John — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:10:40 +0000

In defence of Mary Holm – I’m a keen follower of her column in the Herald, and find her views sensible. I don’t think she’s anti-property, she just isn’t one of the many who think property is the be-all-and-end-all of investing.

On the topic of whether she’s an expert – her website http://www.maryholm.com indicates that she’s an author, lecturer, and seminar presenter, but not that she’s a financial adviser, so I assume the accusation about commissions is unfounded. She’s also a member of the Capital Markets Development Taskforce, meaning her expertise is pretty widely recognised.

By: Peter II

Peter II — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:37:07 +0000

To the list of Bernard Hickey and Gareth Morgan needs to be added the name of Mary Holm. She regularly writes articles in the paper professing to be an expert on financial investing and property. Basically she (and all other financial “advisors”)hates property because they make no commission on people doing their own investing through property rather than paying very expensive fees (visible and often invisible)to them.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:40:48 +0000

I agree with Peter, I am now very dubious about anything Bernard Hickey or Gareth Morgan have to say. When will these two actually be held accountable for some of their very bold statements? I have been following Tony Alexandra’s commentaries since the late nineties and have found him to be consistantly reliable with his predictions.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:53:44 +0000

My guess is that Tony Alexander is referring to comments from Bernard Hickey in relation to one mild profile individual and Gareth Morgan in relation to predicting a market collapse since 1988. Lets name these individuals who seek the limelight of the media for their own purposes and let them defend their statements.

By: Alistair Helm

Alistair Helm — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:34:24 +0000

Appreciate the reference to the article on the Unconditional blog. As a principle I am keen to share the various source of information and provide some interpretation on the real estate market – this is based on my belief that more information shared in an informed and easily understood manner allows more people to be better able to make smart decisions when it comes to property purchase.

Not wishing to partake in self-promotion; I would just like to share the insight we are endeavouring to bring to the market in the form of the new monthly report we are producing from statistics from the website which indicate the health of the market as measured by the inventory of new listings coming onto the market and the asking price expectations of those sellers.

The first report (NZ Property Report) was published on the 1st April and provides a historical perspective covering the past 2 years back to Jan 2007. Future months reports will be published on the first of every month.