Archive for media
Is everybody leaping
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So it is the end of February already and a leap year at that.
Maybe as one gets older the years get shorter, certainly seems that way anyway.
Interesting reading in the papers today. Apparently, if they are to be believed, the property markets in NZ, OZ and the USA are recovering.
Now how even a bad journalist can say that with a straight face is beyond me but maybe it is simply after 4 years of hell we are trying to talk ourselves into a recovery in spite of the facts. Any piece of positive data, no matter how flawed, gets paraded around like the Hope Diamond.
So the tricky part here is where is the line. It is true that we possess what we confess so it is good to talk positively before we see it. This is what hope and faith are about. But the flip side is that reality is reality and sometimes we have to look at the big picture and find our own hope without needing all the circumstances to change. I tended to live in the first camp but age and wisdom forces me to meet more in the middle these days.
The world is in a mess. That is going ot take probably a decade to fix, if not longer. So waiting for the market to change is a bad strategy. However finding good markets and opportunities in the midst of this global nightmare is a good strategy.
Maybe you have been like I was, sitting on stock waiting for the numbers to come right. I realised after 3 years they may not come right for another ten years, so you bite the bullet, feel the pain, take the loss but start to be able to breathe again. And suddenly an option like the USA market or a business opportunity or whatever appears that you couldn’t have considered before because you were in so much pain.
I hope this makes sense, it was very liberating for me to stop hanging on to stuff and on the other side of the pain there was life again! So let it go and make a note to think about again next Feb 29th 
Stay Inspired ~ Dean
PS: Only 24 hours to go CASHFLOW CITY
Up, down, sideways or the same
Posted by: | CommentsA fascinating week in the news with T
he Economist warning us of a 25% drop in house prices, every real estate principal saying the opposite and the statistics able to favour any position depending on which particular part of the country you examine.
I think that New Zealand, like the USA, really doesn’t know what to do and how to assess the information coming out so in true DIY fashion, we all guess.
The fact is the world is in a mess economically. The nations most at risk are those who tried to avoid a hard landing in the early stages of the recession, propping up their economies in the hope that the recovery would come in time for them to avoid any real pain.
The problem is the recession isn’t going anywhere soon and the countries taking the big hits, who appear so incompetent now, like most of Europe, are probably no worse off than the USA and other more “civilized nations”.
Housing is an indicator of a countries wealth, their residents incomes and their general outlook on life. It isn’t something you can manipulate or control to improve an economy.
So in many caes the real hard issues aren’t yet being addressed or fixed. And until they are we will continue to have this seesaw posturing. But you can be sure of one thing in my opinion:
Every nation in the world is affected by what happens in China, followed closely by the USA. And they BOTH have an ocean of pain to go through yet, which must wash over us all.
So hang on, we’re still in for a bumpy ride .
Stay Inspired and Hold Fast ~ Dean Letfus
Surely markets ARE the reality?
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I do not know Alistair Helm from realestate.co.nz but his company research and his comments have always been high quality and intelligent, unlike many commentators.
So I had to laugh at a comment he is quoted as making after publishing his latest report which is being published all over the web and print media.
“We are now more in favour of sellers than buyers in the vast majority of regions, but the market doesn’t appear to have realised it,” Helm said.
So the stats are reality abut the market is ignoring the research??
Surely the reality is that the market iss till bad because our economy is bad and inflation is starting to kill us, especially with food. So the reduction in listings actually means little if anything because we are not in a “normal” market.
I strongly suspect that the market will stay in reality mode and ignore the latest stats because you can’t eat and drink stats. People are keeping their money in their pockets and prioritising how to survive, not rushing out to buy the new house.
Having said that I do have to express some surprise at the 2.3% increase in vehicle sales which could arguably be a leading indicator of increased confidence. OR maybe everybody who wanted to buy a house settled for a second hand car instead
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Talk about Mysogyny
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I found the uproar over Alasdair Thompsons fundamentally true statements costing him his job sad and unfair. So today to read the comments regarding the real estate agents fighting, article here, totally unbelievable.
Whoever the REAA spokesman is should be drawn and quartered based on the previous case. How can it be ok to say:
A spokesman for the Real Estate Agents Authority said he was not particularly surprised to hear of the agents’ fight last year.
“I think it tends to be the females more than the males going for each other,” he said, adding he had seen a number of complaints involving physical assaults.
Yes we see women beating each other up all over the place in our industry, not the genteel metrosexual men though, not they hug and love each other fine.
What absolute nonsense .
Have a great day and look out for those violent female agents if you are house hunting…..
Get Going and Stay Inspired ~ Dean Letfus
The hype has started, DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE
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The media is full of good news this week regarding housing recovery. Which is nice and warm and fuzzy for realtors but doesn’t match up with reality much. I know this is my pet “hate” but it is so prevalent I think we need to keep battling it.
You see the people making these comments are looking at data, not talking to buyers, sellers and agents. And the problem with data, especially in a depressed market, is it can and does lie. I covered this in some detail HERE and yet we still get swayed when we see this stuff in the paper.
I currently am involved in 2 sales of properties in Auckland and the agents are struggling to get anything on paper at any level. I have friends with a gorgeous new build in Palmy who can;t even get an insulting offer on paper. Agents are leaving the industry in droves in Auckland and sales are still very, very bad, except for certain specific property types in very specific areas.
So don’t panic, you are not out of time to be bargain hunting, just keep looking and be patient. Articles written by coal face investors are worth taking notice of, journos, economists and marketers can and should be ignored. We are about to see a whole lot more pain in the USA and China is going to join the party, Australia is finally popping and ALL THAT will keep things down here for some time.
So be patient, stick to your rules but also……
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Showing ones true colours award
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I admit, I have occasionally given Bernard Hickey a bit of a hard time, although not for a long, long time. Bernard is a fabulous marketer who drives enormous amounts of traffic to his website, which is how he makes money and good on him. HE does this by carefully manicuring his profile and often saying things to get people annoyed enough to comment. People like me I guess .
I do laugh sometimes at his reputation as a property oracle however as he seems to be consistently anti property and as far as I can tell based on his writings, has no or little actual experience in property.
Anyway his article in the Herald LINK is without doubt the funniest thing I have ever read from a commentator. At first I thought it must have been a spoof but apparently he really wrote it.
His main points, (and my comments) are as follows:
~ A capital gains tax is not economically bad. (Because somehow he knows?)
~ This property boom created a generation of wealthy farm owners. (A global economic bull market had nothing to do with it?)
~ This property boom created a legacy of foreign debt. (Previous Government and banking policy had nothing to do with it)
~ This boom drove house prices beyond the reach of young people. (Low wages have nothing to do with it)
~ John Key has no real intention of addressing the structural imbalance that is killing our economy. ( BH knows better than the PM I’m sure)
~ Because of the collapse of finance companies and the slide in bank deposit rates, investors buy houses to make tax-free capital gains. (Yes we were all sitting there waiting for those 2 events before we bought any more houses because money was so much easier to get after the finance industry collapsed. Maybe he was really drunk when he wrote that one?)
~ House prices are rising again because Key ruled out a capital gains tax or land tax. (Supply and demand curves are evil dreams created by National party supporters)
~ The property boom caused the currency to rise from US70c to US83c. ( Pardon? Hello? )
~ Because Key won’t introduce CGT he is anti young people. (ROFL)
~ Key is not interested in the people; of New Zealand, only property owners and old people. ( Yes he fancies grannies all over the country)
~ Labour’s decision should be welcomed but it doesn’t go far enough. ( No of course not, if you hate National, anything Labour suggests must be good right?)
~ We should have land tax as well. (And old age tax and no tax for young people so they stay here)
~ If we don’t become more socialist, communist or any other way of being more left lots of young person will leave New Zealand. ( You could lead the way BH and show them how to leave )
I am afraid I just can’t stop laughing long enough to say much more about this, maybe BH is getting ready to take over the Greens?
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Journalism reaching new weirdness??
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I can’t stop laughing over this one in the Herald. You may not get it like I did but this journalist did a piece the other day saying that rents were 43% over valued in New Zealand. This was factually incorrect and she had a back lash from people about how evil landlords were obviously.
So today she corrected herself and wrote a lengthy piece referencing all sorts of unrelated articles and declaring that she doesn’t have an opinion, doesn’t know what the answer is and maybe there is no such thing as average rents.
I have just never seen such a “keep typing and saying nothing” approach to a property article before.
It is truly the weirdest piece I have seen in the Herald ever.
Read it for yourself, what do you think?? LINK
Next Few Blogs will catch you up with US stuff as I am there from tomorrow. For some great reading on why you should be buying there check out this: LINK
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
