Articles by James Heard

For most of us new is so appealing, even the idea of new carries a certain mystique. What will be new, fresh, in this otherwise familiar product? It doesn’t matter whether it is clothes, cars, cameras, jewellery, guns, boats, tennis racquets, a smart phone or even houses. Today of course it is not just the newness that has appeal it is the integration of functional design for…

Buyers and sellers can only feel a degree of comfort at the continuing low mortgage interest charges. The Reserve Bank in its November 2018 Monetary Policy Statement indicated a clear intention to hold the Official Cash Rate at 1.75% throughout 2019 and 2020. Buyers and sellers can only feel a degree of comfort at the continuing low mortgage interest charges. The Reserve Bank in…

Du Plessis Heard Column Anti-Money Laundering If it were possible to troll sales data and then mathematically predict the sale price of your home / intended future home or that of any other home in town the profession of Registered Valuer would cease to exist. Masses of sales data will allow a trend line to be established but right now where the trend line for Pukekohe is that…

A shortfall of 900 teachers today: 2,000 plus students without permanent teachers. By 2020 a shortage of 2,500 teachers. Costs driving teachers out of Auckland. Leaky homes! Housing shortages. House prices! The cost of energy: electricity and petroleum. Monopoly and duopoly markets operating with little effective control over pricing models. A billion dollars, annually, for the…

As is the case in life it’s the little things we miss that get us into trouble. Being late to pick up your child from kindergarten. Cruising at 108 km / hr having forgotten that it’s a holiday weekend: suddenly reminded by the flashing red and blue and yes they’ve been turned on for you. And it’s all the little things rolled together that influence prices in the residential…

Spring is one of the ‘traditional’ peak selling seasons and with the surging property prices behind us for a while, and that while is more probably measured in years than months, tradition is again in play Spring is one of the ‘traditional’ peak selling seasons and with the surging property prices behind us for a while, and that while is more probably measured in years than…