Sell A House Quick

Intro Hello. I’m Bernard Hickey with the daily briefing from interest.co.nz… Today, we’ll look a bit more closely at what the Reserve Bank is saying about house prices and the willingness of banks to lend in the midst of this credit crunch, And we’ll look at the latest development in the turmoil on global credit markets. This time it’s all about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They don’t sound like serious names, but this is a serious problem. It’s worth the wait. Story 1, But firstly, we look a bit more closely at what the Reserve Bank said yesterday about house prices. A few comments were made that were buried under the headlines about steady interest rates and slowing economic growth. The Reserve Bank reckons house prices will fall by an average 5% in 2008 and probably be stable in 2009. But Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard has warned that there is a risk that house prices call fall much more sharply. He says there has been a tightening of credit conditions among banks, who are being more cautious about how they lend to businesses and consumers. The Reserve Bank also reckons that house prices are 20-30 per cent over valued in real terms. That could either mean a sharp correction of prices in the next year or two or a long slow catch up where actual prices don’t move but inflation of 2-3% a year for a decade or so whittles away that over valuation. There’s even some discussion on propertytalk.com that we might not see any more capital gains for property investors for 50 …