STEPHEN SAYS

6th July '11

I wrote in May that there would be a shortage of homes in Canterbury and that rental homes will be high in demand.  Little did I know that the Government was to announce that they would be offering payouts to homes in the Red Zone to an initial 5000 homes with maybe more to follow.
 
This has caused a huge flood of people looking for either homes to buy or to rent and clearly there is a huge shortfall of homes readily available as demand far outstrips supply.  I was reading the Property Investor magazine today and the front page in bold yellow was "Buy Buy Buy".    We are also hearing of many situations where there are multi offers on undamaged homes and prices are increasing.
 
We have not increased our prices for homes that are either built or under construction but we are being faced with cost increases like everyone else and there is no doubt that the cost of building is set to rise over the coming months.  For the savvy investor we still have several homes under either a minimum rent guarantee or under lease to Fletcher Building and Lumley General Insurance (NZ Ltd.  All the homes are in the Green Zone and desirable locations with attractive rents.