Blog: The Landlord says...

One of the less reported news items this week was the Prime Minister’s speech about the economy where he lambasted its recent performance.

The speech also included the “six drivers” the government wants to use to address the country’s economic underperformance.

One which property owners need to be wary of has been labelled “a world-class tax system”.

Now this speech was a little fuzzy and didn’t tell readers or listeners much about what the problem with the tax system is or what could change.

However, already there have been comment pieces suggesting the target of such reform will be property investors.

One metropolitan paper ran an editorial saying that changes must be made to stop New Zealanders using foreign funds to borrow up big and then invest in housing.

This is a theme which has been picked up elsewhere.

While the tax system, arguably, may encourage property investing, making changes to the tax system isn’t going to be some magic bullet to solve economic performance or to make houses more affordable.

I’m wary that forces are lining up to attack something which has arguably delivered a lot of wealth to New Zealanders.

Any changes need to be well thought through and discussed. As for property investors, be warned: you may be about to come under attack.

One of the most common questions I get asked is, where are interest rates going? People want to know where rates will be in a year’s time to help them make decisions on what to do now.

Unfortunately, no one can answer that question. It’s a bit like asking what you are going to have for dinner on June 15, next year.

Rates can be highly unpredictable, especially in this period of time where there is much economic uncertainty.

A year ago no one expected interest rates to be as low as they are today; if they did then it would be hard to explain why all these people took out long-term loans.

If they knew where rates were going they wouldn’t have done that and we wouldn’t have had this huge amount of activity in breaking fixed rates.

While we don’t know where rates are going we do a lot of work at mortgagerates.co.nz trying to get a handle on this question.

One of our regular surveys is of economists and their predictions about where interest rates will be in the future.

In the survey we ask the question about the OCR and the floating rate mainly as they are tied together, although the Bank of New Zealand chief economist argued otherwise recently.

The results of our most recent survey show a clear trend, but also show that economists have some quite different views around timing.

The overall trend, and this shouldn’t come as a surprise, is that rates will stay low until some time in 2010, and then start to rise quite quickly.

Looking at this floating rate graph, it shows that we may well see some more cuts to what is on offer.

The cuts are looking at coming in the next quarter or so which may tie in with any spring advertising campaigns from banks. From there we don’t see any movement until early to mid 2010. Then rates rise, and according to predictions, they may rise quickly and strongly.

Indeed there are suggestions that floating rates could get up above the 8% mark within 12 months.

While that seems high, the floating rate has averaged a whopping 9.4% over the past five years – making 8% look nearly cheap!

One of the more fascinating stories for property investors this week has been changes at formerly high-profile “education company” Richmastery.

This story reports on a restructuring where the business is transferred from one company to another and the former company is put into liquidation.

Richmastery is one of those organisations which attracts a fair bit of criticism; Often it is labelled as promoters of “get-rich-quick” schemes and even the word “spruiker” has been attached to it.

No doubt some of the criticism is well-founded. Other bits are tall poppy syndrome, or just competitors taking a free-hit.

One does have to acknowledge though, that over the years Richmastery has helped many people get into property investment and succeed.

What is interesting to observe is that the company is not as prominent as it was during the boom years. Its advertising is rarely seen these days. The millions of email I used to get in my inbox have stopped coming.

Many companies have a life cycle and one wonders whether these “property education” companies only last for one property cycle? I don’t know the answer.

It seems there are a number of contenders starting to emerge who are eyeing up the space once dominated by Richmastery.

Of course the other reason Richmastery may have gone through this corporate restructure and left behind a shell company with no assets and $76,000 in debts could be something to do with one of the last comments in the liquidator’s report.

It says Richmastery and Gilligan Rowe are in a legal battle. None of the details are revealed, but no doubt a scrap between the two principals would be one riveting legal battle.

There is a lot of head scratching going on over the future of home loan rates this week. As I said last week the Reserve Bank is saying its base official cash rate is likely to stay around the 2.5% mark until 2010 and home loan rates should stay down.

However, the market is disagreeing with the central bank, and saying that rate increases will start early in 2010. A wrap of what the economists are saying, now they have had some time to digest the RBNZ announcement and review the market reaction, is here.

This split in opinion is quite critical for borrowers. Most experts, whether they are economists or mortgage brokers, are saying the best strategy at the moment is short-term rates. Go for six-month or one-year terms and look to roll them at maturity.

However, many comments to the previous Blog suggested going long makes the most sense at the moment. A couple things to consider are that long-term rates, particularly five-year rates, are sitting at their historical average and are very close to where they were a year ago.

Short-term rates are some of the lowest on record, and as this graph shows, are significantly lower than a year ago. Indeed the six-month rate is more than 400 basis points lower than this time last year.

One of the more exciting things in what was a rather dull Budget last week was funding for home insulation jobs.

This is an idea the previous government started and National initially trashed when it took over the Treasury benches. Seeing it pick the policy up again is, pardon the pun, but warming news.

It’s also something which the media has really got its teeth into too.  There are plenty of stories about the “ice blocks” people live in and how cold New Zealand houses are.

Over the week I’ve also heard lots of stories about the old, cold houses and flats people have lived in before, and there are plenty of these stories.

The other thing which has caught my attention is how many people have asked about rental properties and whether landlords are going to get their investments insulated.

To me it is a no-brainer. Provide a good property and you will get better quality tenants, keep them longer and even charge higher rents. But unfortunately it seems not many investors have, in the past, been prepared to do this.

I hope that this attitude changes and landlords wake up to the offer which the government is making.

Meanwhile, if you are a landlord and have insulated a property I’d love to hear from you to find out how you went about it, and what the end result was. You can send an email to thelandlord@landords.co.nz

What drives the property market?

There is plenty of commentary around at the moment about the state of the property market and where it is going. Much of it, in my view, is misguided.

Let’s sit back for a moment and think about what the key factors are.

Three of the biggest are: mortgage rates, immigration and affordability.

I would argue things like the United States economy, mortgagee sales and what farmers are doing has a marginal influence on the market. Indeed, using these factors as arguments for where the market is heading is misleading.

Mortgage rates are a critical factor in the affordability of property. Right now rates are at or near historical lows which help make the property equation stack up.

Buyers in this market are getting a real leg up with low rates and people with existing debt will see their servicing costs come down as they roll over loans. The Reserve Bank has made it clear it sees interest rates staying down for some time, which must be a plus for the market.

History shows us that immigration numbers and the housing market are closely related and tend to move in tandem. The basic logic, which is hard to argue with, is that when people move to New Zealand they need a roof over their heads. Thus, supply of property has to increase.

Right now there is an uptick in immigration numbers which should help stabilise at the least and even support house prices.

The other positive factor for the market now is one which doesn’t generally get a lot of air time and that is consents.

It’s like immigration. With a growing population base the country needs more houses. Right now, new consent numbers are low. Basic supply and demand economics says that in such a situation, house prices will rise.

The big unknown at the moment is rising unemployment.

And finally, a little reality check.

Double digit returns aren’t likely to be widespread in the property market for some time. So what? They shouldn’t be, and nor should there be an expectation that there should be. The risks of rental property investing aren’t high enough to justify double-digit numbers.

Secondly, people shouldn’t look at the residential property market as one big generic asset class. It is made up of lots of sectors and segments. You can break it down in a myriad of ways from coastal to apartments; from lower value rental property to high value prestige properties; from urban to provincial. Each of these markets is different and should be understood.

Many investors are jumping into the market, not for massive quick capital gains but for low risk, cash flow positive properties. This is quite understandable considering some of the other investment options available to them at the moment.

Making sense of what is happening to house prices has to be one of the most difficult things for home owners and investors to do.

Firstly there is a wealth of data, mainly from QV and the Real Estate Institute (REINZ), which you can use to interpret yourself. This is raw data on sales which you can use to draw your own views. We collect the REINZ data and provide some tools to track and compare what is happening here.

Over the top of that there are numerous commentators, some expert and some not.

A couple of pieces of news this week caught my attention and are helpful in understanding these two groups of information.

The first is a piece by Alistair Helm which compares and comments on the differences between QV and REINZ data. Each organisation collects and reports things differently and often they can seem to tell differing stories.

The second piece comes from BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander who summed up well in this week’s newsletter, his thoughts on some of the “commentators” who end up in the media and why they seem to have gone quiet. The key reason they have gone quiet is because the market isn’t tanking, but showing signs of recovery.

I have included some of Alexander’s views here as they are important:

“One doesn’t hear so much now from those who have been picking a 40% fall in NZ house prices. It has always been a mystery to us how one could generate such apocalyptic forecasts.

“For another individual the reason is probably that they have been predicting a property market collapse since at least 1988 when one first heard them speak.”

I agree with Alexander and suggest that people need to understand a bit about people who are making forecasts, what their experience is, but more importantly, what their motivation for commenting is too.

One can argue bank economists are always saying things to please their masters and help drum up business.

My experience is that bank economists give fair and frank assessments. They aren’t out there saying things just to help drum up business and they aren’t just glorified PR merchants.

Call me contrary. First it is great to see there is life coming back into the property market. Those of you who follow The Landlord will know that I have been suggesting for some time now that the market isn’t dead and it isn’t going to fall 30%.

There are just too many factors to suggest that there is a level of support which will keep the market and prices from crashing down.

To get a 30% fall in house prices would need an unheard of economic disaster. While it is tough out there, it’s not that bad, nor looking like being that bad.

However, I would suggest that people don’t get carried away with this little bit of positive news we have seen in the market.

Previously I have argued one of the biggest risks is unemployment. As more and more people find themselves out of work, there will be increasing downward pressure on the property market.

The other factor that I have increased my weighting on is banks and finance. It is no secret that banks and their tight, tight rules around lending are hindering the market big-time. That came through loud and clear in the Landlords.co.nz/Mike Pero survey of property investors this week.

What is also concerning is that banks just aren’t lending much. Good Returns has reviewed the latest lending numbers for the period to December 31. There are two surprising findings. Groups like ANZ National have cut their lending activities back significantly. Meanwhile, Kiwibank accounted for the large majority of new lending in the quarter.

It has done such a good job with acquiring new customers that it is now facing a service issue. It seems that it too has reached a capacity point and it will join the big banks on pulling back from new lending.

That means there aren’t a lot of places left for people to find money to buy property. This factor is likely to have a bigger impact on the market than previously thought.

A report in the NZ Herald earlier this week quoted Westpac economist Doug Steel suggesting house prices had reached fair value. The piece is memorable as many of the economists out there, and some wannabe economists, have been incredibly bearish on the housing market and expect prices to continue their downward slide.

Here are four reasons why I don’t buy into the pessimistic view.

1. Mortgage rates are low and the shorter-term ones are destined to go lower. The Reserve Bank will cut its OCR again (by how much is another question). It will cut as the economy is in a recession and there are no signs of it emerging and the dollar is heading in the wrong direction, undoing previous cuts. Added to that, banks haven’t passed on all of the recent OCR cuts.
2. House Sales are stabilising. While it is always risky reading into data and trying to pick early trends, it seems that on a seasonally-adjusted basis sales have stabilised. There is clearly a lot more activity in the market and that is likely to help stabilise prices, not push them lower.
3. Supply and demand. House construction statistics show there is nowhere near enough construction going on to increase the housing stock, especially when population growth through immigration is thrown in. This can only be a plus for property investors.
4. Falling cost of living. There is a view that people are stretched to meet their home loan repayments. Sure some are, but others and particularly those who have job security, should be okay. Interest rates are coming down, so to is the cost of other living expenses including petrol (compared to last year). On the other side of the balance sheet there are tax cuts. I suspect for the majority of people the squeeze, while there, isn’t as bad as some suggest.

While these are four factors which tend to support the market, there are also plenty of risks out there too. It is important to put these factors into perspective, which on balance seem to me to indicate that we are somewhere near the bottom, but there won’t be a massive uptick either. Rather we are talking about a slow, gradual climb out of the market trough.

A little while ago I commented on the coverage of mortgagee sales in New Zealand. This week there was a useful bit of information put out which was, arguably, the more definitive research with real numbers.

The stories written in the past had been reasonably sensationalist and not particularly scientific. The new survey, from Terralink, is based on registered mortgagee sales.

What is interesting is that the percentage and actual numbers of properties sold by this method is pretty small; 191 properties nationwide in January. But growing.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the number is growing.

The points which are useful to note are that many of the sales are being done by second tier finance crowds, not the mainstream banks. I’m not sure many people knew finance companies were involved in this market.

Secondly there are always winners and losers in these types of transactions. The winners will be the buyers as it seems often the vendor will let the properties go at whatever price they can get.

For investors mortgagee sales are useful to look at, but as we reported in NZ Property Investor Magazine, there can be fish hooks in these sorts of transactions and buyers need to be aware of what is happening.

The other trend we may see is a spike in mortgagee sales while finance companies cash up their loans, and then the mortgagee market will be more focussed around what banks are doing. The message I am hearing across the market is that banks are finding more and more of their lenders are running into trouble or difficulties with repayments, but to their credit (no pun intended) some are setting up divisions within the bank to identify potential problem clients and help them before it is too late.

When it gets to the too-late stage there is little option but to go to a mortgagee sale.