The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand has advised the national medium house price to the end of May is now $248,000 up $6,000 from last month. The medium time to sell a house is up 1 day to 30 days.
 

The economy is expected to continue to grow in the next 18 months but at a slightly slow than average pace than the average for the past 10 years.

Dr Bollard increased the Official Cash Rate to 5.75% in Mid June. There is the possibility of two more increase’s Official Cash Rate by the end of the year with the first possibly in July. Floating mortgage rates are expected to peak at 8.5%.
 

Over the next three years the Government is to spend $834m on renovating current properties and purchasing new housing stock.

With new houses the designs will not be “one box fits all” but will blend in with the local architecture. In many instances the Government is leasing the houses for 10 years from individual property investors. .

In Auckland they are looking to provide an additional 2,408 houses. These houses will be spread throughout Auckland in small pockets to avoid the State housing estates of the past.
 

Discussions were entered into by the Trustees of an estate with the neighbours of the property contained within the trust. The elderly trustees signed off on a contract that they believed reflected a verbal agreement to sell all but the house and 1,300-sqm of the 9.6 ha property. The written contract was to sell all of the 9.6 ha property for $300,000.

It was clear to the court that the elderly trustees did not intend to sell all of the property, as one in the trustees was to continue to live in the house. The trustees had signed the contract as they trusteed the neighbours completely and the sale price was grossly inadequate. The court believed the agreement was “unconscionable and resulted in a substantially unequal bargain”.

The court ordered that the written contract be amended to reflect the original verbal agreement.
 

The Tenancy Tribunal in Auckland has recently ruled that a property manager breached its responsibility with regards to a house that had had a P lab in it busted by the Police.

It was found by the Tribunal that the property manager did not clean the house and ensure that it was fit for human inhabitation before re-letting it.

As a result of this case a number of Local Councils have set up procedures to ensure that they are advised, by the police, of any P labs that are found in residential properties. The council will then inspect the property to ensure that it is safe to live in.

The Far North District Council is looking at including the information on its Land Information Memorandums if the site is found to be contaminated.
 

One of the largest leaky homes disputes has settled. While the settlement was not as much as the plaintiffs would have liked the possibility of substantial legal costs to fight the case through all of the courts saw the owners settle on the eve of their court fixture. The 85 townhouses are in the Greenwich Park estate in central Auckland. The original claim from the owners of the townhouses was $9m. Owners will now concentrate on the repair process that is estimated at $5.3m.

The Building Industry Authority has released the new building standards designed to stop leaky homes. The expected additional average cost to a new home to comply with the standard is $2,500 and for an apartment the cost is estimated at $3,000. The new standards apply from 1 February 2005.
 

In a recently released report by Mercer Human Resource Consulting NZ cities were racked as follows in terms of most affordable centres in the developed world (out of 144 on the Western worlds most expensive cities)

Auckland	80th most expensive
Wellington	86th most expensive
Christchurch	107th most expensive
Dunedin	128th most expensive

Tokyo is still the most expensive city in the world to live in. Sydney is ranked at number 20.
 

The rates were recently struck for the up coming year. This year residents are faced with an average increase of 1.9%. Businesses are facing the brunt of the increased rates with an average increase of 63%.
 

There are currently 4 major developments of apartments underway in key locations within the city. With the recent sale of an 8,000-sqm site in the city it could possibly see another apartment block being built or the site used for a commercial use (hotel, or a national wide retail store).
 

The Council has decided not to get involved in the development of sub-divisions in the future. It has all but exited the Walters Bluff project after making a loss on it. The last development, Panaroma Heights (202 sections) made a substantial profit for the council ($3.34 m for the year ended 31 March 2004). The decision has been made to stick to core services.

In the year ended December 2003 house prices had increased 46% in the region and rents had increased on average by 6.5%. Since then the market value of houses has slowed substantially with the price of houses rising just 1% from December 2003 to March this year while there is anecdotal evidence that rents appear to be dropping. This is leading to a decrease in the returns that investors are receiving from this region so investors are starting to look elsewhere in NZ.
 

A residential development that has been established on a site that had been a rubbish dump for 70 years up until 1942 has been found to contain high contaminate levels. The council has tested a number of privately owned properties in the development and a substantial number are contaminated. The Council is considering establishing a clean up fund to help the private owners at Sandilands.

The Christchurch council has indicated that its rates increase will be in the vicinity of 3.5% (or less than $1 for most households).
 

There are signs that the Australian economy is slowing down with the smallest increase in the price of housing in three years. A lot of the key indicators are showing a slowing up and economists believe that the slowing of the housing will slow of the economy as a whole. Some commentators believe the housing market peaked in August last year.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is not expected to change the interest rate from its current rate of 5.25%. Some commentators believe the interest rates have already peaked.