Almost three and a half months have now passed since the March 23 announcement of some radical changes in tax rules for investors in residential property. The expectation has been that investors will sell up in disgust, but there's no statistical evidence of a flood of properties hitting the market.
I continue to hear stories about investors selling off their properties in disgust at the government’s proposed tax changes. But are investors about to bail out of the market?
Investing money with property developers is risky. In this post we talk about how risky it is and ask how it can even happen.
On March 23 the government surprised everyone with some draconian changes in the ability of property investors to deduct interest expenses when calculating their tax obligations. Will we really see big changes which could stop house prices rising for an extended period as the government would like? No.
In this article I’m focusing on the idea of debt-to-income ratios. It is likely that they will be a key tool used by the Reserve Bank to meet its new house price stability objective.
Newsroom’s Alexia Russell sat down with Chief Squirrel JB to chat about what the Government's recent announcement means for first home buyers. Does it remove the stumbling blocks, or is it still hard as ever for young Kiwis to get onto the property ladder? Are there going to be any unintentional consequences?
The last time 40% deposits for investors were introduced, Auckland house prices had been soaring for four years. This time, we're only a year into the current frenzied house price cycle, and interest rates are much lower than they were. So how much impact will reintroducing the rule have?
In March the Reserve Bank will reimplement LVR (loan-to-value ratio) restrictions on property investors. This will mean lending for investment properties will be required to have a 70% or possibly 60% loan-to-value ratio.
Most of us store a large part of our wealth in property. It could be in our owner-occupied home, a holiday house or an investment portfolio. And a large number of property owners are starting to head towards retirement.
There are numerous reasons to regularly review your mortgages and make sure you still have the right overall solution for your lending. Part of that includes not putting all your eggs in one basket, and splitting your lending across different banks to avoid sticky situations.
As a general rule of thumb, any property investor who has at least six rental properties is viewed as a "professional" property investor through the eyes of the bank. And the way these investors are treated by the banks is markedly different to someone whose main income is not from property.
As I've eluded to over the past few months, I've expected house prices to stay reasonably stable, especially entry-level properties. However, there will be pockets of the market that are hit harder, and one of the segments is apartments.