Spot the Obvious!

A Survey out recently explained that 1 in 7 people are not keen on buying an investment property today v's the 1 in 4 people a year ago.  To that my immediate thought was, duh, spot the obvious!!! Would you, Mr Joe Bloggs, be keen to by an investment property when everywhere you look there is yet another article telling you the property market is stagnant and the returns are next to nothing???  Of course this is potentially going to knock confidence a bit with a general consumer.

From my research (that anyone who logs on to REINZ.co.nz can get), I have discovered the following:

I have highlighted the two times where the drop in price actually happened which is 1998 - 1999 and again in 2008 - 2009.   If you work out the percentages it is less than a 5% drop - oh my goodness, big deal! right?  Agh no, not really.

Ok, so i've only done this for Auckland (for now) and sure, I know that some parts of the country and some suburbs were effected a lot worse than this picture I've painted above (Manawatu - where i have property for one), but I am just trying to indicate that I don't think it is really that bad (from my basic research anyway).

I just do not understand why there is so much involvement from so many people talking a property market down when the fact is, who can really predict past tomorrow?  The property market in my eyes is just doing what it does, its going cold for a few years, we are probably another 2-3 years away from it picking up but I don't think it is the end of property investment as we know it.  In fact, for me, I want to start buying up a couple of properties per year over the next few years, pay down the mortgages as much as possible to gear me up for the eventual return of the next rise (however big or small it might be).  There are more benefits to property than just Capital Gain.

Property, bricks & mortar, like it or lump it, is safe.  Supply and demand, employment, immigration, overseas  dramas, all major factors in property markets all around the world.

I'll leave you with this question; we aren't making anymore land are we?