tough property market

[macfod]

sometimes you cant win...
poor stirling exchange rate and now the markets dived with what looks to be selling a house below what we paid for it four years ago ..dumdee dah
at least we live in NZ

having to sell a house as we arent earning at the moment with no jobs......aaaah!

and now its gone from 23c to 12c and rain...looks like fun....
at least we have our dream home, just cant afford to revamp it..yet

[KiwiAbroad]

That really sucks, have you thought about renting it out and working abroad for a while until things improve?

[stanley]

Hi Macfod,

i pestered you in the past with questions on LTBV, we are in the same position, we sold our house in the UK droping our price by £65,000, we were at the now or never stage.
We got to NZ end of Jan, by the time we changed our money a week or so ago our money had droped so much with the rate, we eventually exchanged at 2.11 to the pound, gutting, then too make things worse the only place that would give us a mortgage insist we put $20,000 in a savings account which we cant touch for a year, so the money we had to do the house up we are buying has been nearly wiped out by the exchange rate and the building society,oh and we have nearly used all our savings and hubby doesnt have a job.
That said we are really excited to move in to our new home next week, our container arrives a day later, then as quick as possible i have to my business up and running.
We love it here and are quite excited about our future, it' s new challenge and we are looking forward to it, I hope to be starting my business as soon as it is possible and cant wait to get started.
Lets hope the exchange rate picks up soon for all those planning the move.

[macfod]

well, no one has ever said you come to NZ to get rich!

The plus points are you start your own business
get you PR and live in this great country

exchange rates , well they suck right now compared to the 3.02 when we first arrived 3 years ago, but because we hadnt got any idea if we could stay and get out PR we were cautious with exchanging too much money,
so bought the business at 3.02 and sold it for $10k less we we didnt mind, bought one house at 2.68 another last year at 2.35 and out of the blue our dream house which we bought at 2.25.
since then house prices have dropped so we are more than likely going to lose money, BUT
In UK we only owned one house because we made over the years.

so to some it up
we came we worked we captured our PR

so, sometimes you have to switch on the idea of making money and take a hit!
Its hard, but life , and we love it here .

This during a major world reccession, aint bad i suppose

[stanley]

Sorry missed your reply somehow. I agree, money aint everything.
How quick did you apply for residency, an i right in thinking you changed to entrareneur status (can never spell that word)? We love it here and hopefully will beready to start my business in another few weeks, looking forward to getting going though.
And i know we are new to NZ but the reccesion seems to be so much less effecting NZ than the UK.
And the difference in the banks is amazing, we had been with the same bank for 25 years, the same bank for business banking for 2 businesses for 10 years and when we left they really stitched us up and continue to do so
I am not saying NZ banks are perfect, cant get my head around all this charging me to have an account. The main difference we have found is they are actually helpfull as i said in my previous post we were having to leave a 20,000 deposit in building society to get mortgage, we were completing on our house on the fri and on the wednesday at 9.30 in the morning i mentioned to our personal banker at the ANZ that our circumstances had changed, by 4.30 we had a mortgage approval from them, saving us the 20,000, then saving us the 1,600 the building society was going to charge us for setting up the mortgage and they gave us 400 towards legal costs, then to top it off the mortgage was 200 per month cheaper. We are in the process of selling a business and premises in the UK, the process started in December and the bank has only just approved the mortgage a week ago!!!

Lets hope the exchange rate changes soon.
Paula.