Steve Hart

Steve Hart

How the pandemic drove an increase in real estate agents

As Covid started to sweep the country in early 2020, and went on to disrupt our daily lives throughout 2021, the real estate sector saw the number of new sales agents jump with thousands of new entrants. This uptick in

Steve Hart

Are First Home Buyers Being Pushed Out of the Market?

While property trends firm CoreLogic predicts lower home values in late 2022, the main hurdle getting in the way of home ownership today is obtaining a mortgage. What many home buyers face now is the triple whammy of higher loan

Steve Hart

Sixty-to-one – how one home-buyer beat the odds

Returning to Wellington from Australia just before Covid-19 arrived on our shores, insurance claims manager Femke Burger figured property values would drop while she searched for the perfect home. Eleven months after attending the first of 60 open homes, and

Steve Hart

A Tale of Two Cities

Compare residential property turnover in the South Auckland suburb of Papakura with Wellington’s upmarket Khandallah and you’ll see a story of two New Zealands. One area is up and coming, ready to make its mark, while the other is well-established

Steve Hart

Are you losing out if you don’t buy now?

It’s the age-old question for any first-home buyer – buy now or wait for prices to drop or hold out for something better. Real estate watcher and writer Steve Hart says there’s no time like the present.

Why property pressure will keep simmering during 2021
Steve Hart

Property pressure will keep simmering during 2021

When it comes to real estate trends and forecasts for 2021, the picture won’t be too different to 2020 according to industry experts who spoke to homes.co.nz. The most comforting prediction for buyers is that the market may be less frantic

Steve Hart

Know and love your area with Steve Koerber

Steve Koerber remembers the first home he sold in Remuera, it was 1998 and it changed hands for $750,000. Today he values it at around $5 million. Moving from the North Shore to the leafy suburb with its prime Auckland

Steve Hart

Expats and first-home buyers buoy regional markets

Thirty houses on a new sub-division in Masterton will go some-way to addressing the area’s housing shortage says Anita Baker of Baker & Co. She sold a 3 hectare block of land to a developer on the day we spoke

Steve Hart

Hot market with auctions delivering good results

Among the ups and downs caused by Covid-19 the country’s real estate market has remained buoyant – especially so given the traditional dip in activity during the winter months. However, the issue of setting a fair sale price, which is

Steve Hart

What is recent data saying about house prices?

House prices, the unofficial barometer of the nation’s economy, are basically unchanged despite early talk of them dropping by up to 10 percent when the Covid-19 crisis shut the country down. According to a report by CoreLogic, drawing on data

Steve Hart

Homebuyers rethink what they want post Covid-19

Although the Covid-19 lockdown is already starting to become a distant memory for most of us; the pandemic has caused some homebuyers to think differently about what they want when it comes to buying their next property. Larger gardens and

Steve Hart

Now might be the time to sit tight

While home buyers and sellers have been stopped in their tracks by COVID-19, it’s good to reflect on past economic traumas and use our time wisely. It was turning into a busy year for real estate until the nationwide lockdown

Steve Hart

Agents find ways to keep working

Open homes and auctions may be on the back-burner due to the Covid-19 outbreak and countrywide lock-in – but that doesn’t mean estate agents are sitting on their hands.  It’s tough going though with the people unable to move home

Steve Hart

Why you might need a bigger home

Making room for older parents, providing children with their own space, and having a home office is among the key reasons homeowners are trading up to larger properties according to one industry professional. Auckland home stager Janine King of Janine