'Buying NZ Property – Download the free sample readings!

NZ presents some of the most alluring property in the Western World; particularly given the greater easy of residency, the low cost of property, and the liveability of the country. In addition, there is no capital gains tax, transfer taxes, VAT/GST or wealth taxes in NZ, so rest assured that NZ property is tax-effective! Learn more now!

New Zealand Property Report 2010 - Download the table of contents or buy this 180-page report at our online store for just $US19.95.


Monday, January 31, 2011

Australia vs NZ - the immigration stakes raised

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Want a sense of which way the 'net migration' picture is moving in NZ - read this story in the NZ Herald. NZ will have its day, though it might have to wait a few more years. The notion that you need an income of $150,000 to live in Australia strikes me as utter nonsense. The cost of food in NZ and Australia is better in Australia, particularly after the increase in the NZ GST to 15%. Maybe that was the final straw for the NZ government. They ought to have cut into welfare rather than raise the GST. Anyway, they might be wise to reconsider effectively taxing immigration...as they are driving migration to Australia.
You can rent a place in Artarmon, Sydney for $370 per week. If you are sharing, that is a modest $750 per month. You can therefore live comfortably in Australia for anything over $50,000. In fact most immigrants from NZ would be making $80,000 plus.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

High priced houses and slavery in NZ

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It is indeed a brave or silly person who takes on a 30-year mortgage in this environment. I would however suggest that these people will be fine. I actually don't expect the commodity producing countries like Australia and NZ to experience inflation...at least not at least whilst they allow their currencies to appreciate. The particular problem for NZ'ers though is that it is reliant on foreign savings. Maybe that makes them more vulnerable to the foreign cost of capital...but if bankers realise that NZ is offsetting foreign currency debasement with rising currency, then I see no reason for there to be such an imposition.
Having said that, I do think that it makes less and less sense to live in the city these days, or at least to pay a premium for it when increasingly people are living in rural areas because they have workplace and lifestyle flexibility. Why pay $300K for a crappy place in Auckland, when you can have a crappy place in Wanganui? The reality is that Wanganui cannot match the facilities of Auckland, but it has other benefits:
1. Access to outdoor activities
2. Proximity to everything
3. Easy living
Eventually those concerns will balance out....and there are bigger centres, or even the opportunity to live in more tourist i.e. growth-orientated places like Queenstown, which is already very expensive. The sad reality is that any 'growth story' is destined to be a basis for extorting higher prices by landowners with the sanction of government. Why? Smart landowners recognise that their land is more valuable if they can stop people subdividing theirs. So they campaign on the basis of 'anti-development', and in the process they get governments to sanction locking up the region from developers....under 'catch cries' like, we don't want the city people. i.e. Lifestylers. It does not even have to be about money...but usually it is. Their money, not yours. They think that because they were their first...they ought to have the right to control how things are. That is democracy people. It sux for everyone, but no one has the broader perspective to see it. They think that their is some redeemable feature to democracy. I will take all feedback. If you think democracy is good, let me know why, and I will repudiate it on my 'Democracy Sux' blog.
What the government is doing is locking people into mortgages for a lifetime. At the end of it, technology will have passed you buy, and you will be wondering why you were ever a slave to a mortgage? Why did you ever place yourself in such a place of vulnerability. We have lobbyists arguing that people cannot afford to buy a home. Lucky people! Its a prison sentence. Get the cheapest house you can buy and have the life you wanted to have. If that is a 'lifestyle' spend it, or save it, if you want to invest, better still, or set up a business. That is life. It gives you a sense of pride or efficacy. Being a slave to a house will lock you into a location you will probably not want to be, into a wife you no longer like, into a job you are scared to leave because of recession, and it will lock you into all manner of follies. The government loves it because:
1. You are always working and contributing to their spending power. The Tax Office loves women's rights, as it registered them as tax slaves as well.
2. You are supporting the welfare umbrella
3. You are establishing an asset base which they and the bank control.. They can always get you. You cannot funnel your assets offshore. That is getting harder anyway.

Read this story about a NZ family living the life of unhappy people. In 20 years, they will wonder why they ever bought the house...or maybe they will not wonder at all. 'Not thinking is the strongest form of sedative'.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Privatisation - and the problem with Key

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I would not be surprised if John Key loses the next election. He is making some big mistakes, and here is why:
1. He is a conservative government in a recession
2. He is advocating privatisation of assets during a recession when they are less valuable for two reasons; share market earnings ratios are lower and two because demand is subdued.
3. Selling the companies in a recession will mean that few poor folk will be able to participate in the profits
4. Track record - NZ sux at privatisation, so he is going to be brandishing that reputation for screw ups
5. He is a prior investment banker....and he has that 'smarmy' smile about him which tells you that he was a salesman, not an analyst. i.e. Not respect for facts; he just likes making money, as any middleman likes to do. Anyone with a respect for facts would not become a politician.
6. Labour will be making this an election on privatisation - about what happened last time.

Labour is also offering a tax cut to the poor which 'socialist' NZ will love. I have to say that this ought to have been a runaway election for the Conservatives. The problem is that Key is just too fleeting. One does not see a plan. One does not see him getting involved in social policy. He is more into the 5sec TV grab - 'got your quote guys...sweet!' sort of man. He needs to spend a day with Oprah. He needs a hug. This country is crying out for social reform.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

NZ does offer attractive buying

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Tower has recommended property buyers re-enter the NZ property market this year due to the prospect of rising inflation. We could not agree more, though with the following caveats:
1. NZ will experience stronger offshore buying and a stronger currency relative to EUR, JPY and USD, probably parity or worse with the AUD.
2. Inflationary pressures will be confined to relative productivity falls
3. Imported inflationary pressures will be minimised by a strong NZD
4. The origin of the NZ "inflation" will not be the NZ government debasement of the currency, but rather productivity losses and weaker cross-rates caused by debasement of the USD, JPY and EUR.

I would suggest that the appeal of property will be broad-based for these reasons. The main factors will be stronger rural incomes, as well as tourist and immigration driven investment.

NZ Property Guide Philippine Real Estate Guide Japan Foreclosed Guide

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The outlook for the NZD

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This story highlights the positive short term outlook for the NZD. The reality however is that the EUR, USD and JPY are sinking ships and we will be looking at stronger rates for NZD and AUD for a long time yet. The current inflation is not going to die. That is 'cost of living' inflation, and this is going to see the hard currencies do very well. Australia will do even better than NZ in the long run, though in the short run, we can expect Australian agriculture to be hurt by floods. NZ will benefit.
I have not looked at the short term chart...but I take it from the article cited that 78c is a recent resistance.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Submissions on local government election bill

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Here is my submission to the NZ government on the election of politicians in local government. Submissions close 1st Feb 2011.

Why do you imagine that voters are not turning out? Might they appreciate that values are not collective? Might they realise that any 'collective wisdom' is merely extortion by those who purport to represent the majority? Frankly, I don't think many of them grasp it. Why should they - when they are given no real opportunity to participate. They are instead obliged to pay out rates unconditionally. Mind you at least local govt more closely approximates real or tangible services, as opposed to the federal budget. But there is still a great deal of collectivist waste involved.
Why do you think there is a great deal of contempt for politicians in the public domain? Might it reflect the incapacity and unwillingness of candidates to be accountable, to respect facts, to educate them...as opposed to telling them what they want to hear.
At least in local politics there is some notion of competition, but clearly that is not enough, when there is extortion when the election results are finalised. We live in hope for capable people, but the reality is that people are so repressed, they do not want capabilities which would require them to think. i.e. They want to pretend that some person is going to take care of them, and politicians as middlemen are elected to peddle the nonsense which allows them to retain that illusion. Now, do you imagine that educational standards are elevated by helping people delude themselves into thinking that others will care for them? No. They will never be better educated by this system than they are now...because they will only get more repressed, as our system of law, taxation, business gets more complicated. This complexity is not a question of logic...its a question of arbitrary imposition and compliance, which means they have no interest or prospect of understanding it. You invest millions in databases to benefit from technology, and yet you expect lay persons to understand your complicated, arbitrary rules, which defy logic.

The importance of local govt is peripheral to the main game which is the national govt laws which sanction its existence, and legitimatise the way it functions.

Justice in New Zealand

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Here is a piece of New Zealand legislation which is 'intended' to simplify the criminal justice system. It is really but a joke. The government is not capable for the reasons I cite. I you want to lodge your own submission to the NZ government, write here.

It is laughable that the legislature would attempt to 'simplify' the legal system when its history over the past 1000 years has been to do exactly the opposite. Let me assure you that in effort by the government to seek to 'simplify' the court system is about as useful as plugging a hole in a dam wall. Of course it allows government to pretend or be perceived to be doing something...and politics is about perceptions. It was never about facts. Science is incidental because it carries some legitimacy, but the real show is managing perceptions.

So if you are not fundamentally evil, my guess is that you are fundamentally repressed as legislators, that you are unable to see the following:
1. The criminal justice system is complicated (i.e. needs simplification) because it is increasingly being based on arbitrary statutory law, and less on principles of common law, which actually apply and consider the context of the situation to which the law applies. The implication is that statutory law defies reasons, so it needs constant remedial measures to resolve the problems it originally created. Because it is arbitrary, it needs exemptions to resolve other problems (i.e. issues of contextual interpretation).
2. Even your own agencies cannot understand the law and offer an interpretation, so how is the public expected to know the (arbitrary) law? This is the arbitrary standard by which you would judge people? Of course criminal law is better because there is less statutory law than other areas of law.
3. It does not help that the parliamentary system is based on perceptions and popularity rather than facts. You are about to introduce stricter alcohol legislation. You might ask yourself why kids are seemingly more prone to 'narcissistic' acts of defiance and disregard for the interests of others given the nature of the legal code. You are not resolving the problem....you are worsening it.
4. You imagine yourself to be offering people political protection or 'rights', but your rights mean nothing when they exclude economic rights. What good is a political right to life, when you allow govt to control my material (i.e. economic) capacity to live. There is no dichotomy between mind-body. My mind provides the means to survive. Extort wealth (i.e. taxation) and you enslave my mind. That would be clean. But by what act of depravity would you force (i.e. tax compliance) would you force me to act against my interests, and proclaim that I am a 'selfish' tax evader if I fail to acknowledge the moral greatness of your inefficient system. Why do you imagine that you, with each reform bill, are always 10 years behind the market. Might it be because you are rewarded 'unconditionally' for compliance to your evil system.

Any step you take is an act of evasion or psychological repression. In the 1960s, just men were repressed because only they were slaves to the system. If you want to know the travesty of your 'progress', its that you have turned women into servile, repressed slaves, to the system instead of men. However, now women live under the same pretense of freedom as men. Yes, women's right to independence allowed them to be slaves to the tax system. This greatly improved our 'manual productivity', but it was at the cost of people's minds. Do you imagine that through coercive values, you would not hinder the intellectual development of mankind. Simply look at what collectivism has done to Russia and compare it to the United States...compare the number of Nobel Prizes....compare the nature of what they win a prize for..i.e. Mendeleyev, developer of the periodic table...a simple effort of correlation. Look at the complex feat of integration I am performing. That would not happen in Russia, it would scarcely have happened in the West, if it was not for those champions of freedom, which prevent me from endorsing or participating in your 'false economy'. I am on strike in a sense...but so is everyone who renounces contradictions and represses.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Timing to buy in New Zealand

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Europeans, Americans and Japanese will love Queentown, NZ...well maybe you will hate the fact that there are already a lot of you already here. Its enough to ruin a place. :)
The good news is that you have a good reason to come to the land of 'milk and honey'.....your currencies are being debased faster than you can say 'Holy cow'. This is just one appealing aspect about NZ. It is a relatively hard currency.....and whilst income growth here is sluggish, that will change in i'd say around 5-10 years for a number of reasons related to resource development, but also its services-related potential. Yes, NZ is going to find a place in the business outsourcing arena, though it will have to improve its accent and telephony infrastructure. In the meantime, expect a currency gap to widen with Australia.
NZ does appeal. The population is flat...but that will change. This is why I think buying in 3-5 years time makes a lot of sense. All the better if you can debt leverage the property and perhaps spend your 'quiet' summers near before you retire here. Why? Well, summer is quiet here. You just have to decide if you like winter here. Given you are coming from Europe, Japan or the USA, you will struggle less with that question that if you are coming from Australia.

In 10 years, I think NZ's fortunes will turn around. I expect some major resource developments which are going to see a major change in the terms of trade, business investment, population retention, and currency ascension. Yep, and some government will take all the credit...when it was all me. Yes me. I was the one who pulled the lever first. I'm holding the smoking gun!

Queenstown - magical place

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I was speaking to an Australian today...if you read this....sorry for cutting you off. I was tinkering around with Google at the time.
Anyway, there are a great number of Australians showing interest in NZ. I understand the appeal, but I must make the point that you don't know the place until you live here. I have lived here two years, and my advice is....do your research. Commonsense I know. There are things you will need to know. I think for most people the Queenstown region offers the greatest appeal even if you only buy an investment property here. The appeal might wear off if you experience a winter here....but then some of you like the snow.
I personally believe Queenstown airport will be used for domestic flights in future, and that there will be a centralised airport built around Gore to service Dunedin, Invercargill, Wanaka and Queenstown. These three centres are a significant distance from Christchurch, so they need a new airport. Queenstown is 6.5 hours from Christchurch. This area has a lot of appeal. The people here are more international, the shops and service are better. The rest of NZ (apart from Auckland) is held in a cultural vortex. Progressive minds leave....retirees enter and keep to themselves. Its a beautiful country...but like Australia it is dominated by idiots. I prefer to live in Japan where they are all saints because I don't understand them. You can however etch out your own existence here. There are plenty of bars, restaurants, walks, rides to provide a superficial and amusement-filled life. The infrequent gratuity goes a long way... and it will sustain you for a week of solitude. Sounds like paradise to me. :)

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

New Zealanders support current voting system

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New Zealanders are a flawed people. There first mistake is finding any utility in democracy. Despite that, they have the good sense to see value in retaining the MMP voting system. The appeal of this system is that it gives new, emerging parties a greater chance of being elected, and finding representation....if that is a good thing. It is good in one respect - it offers the prospect of greater competition. The contemporary two-party system is not competitive....least of all when politicians are getting a lifetime pension. There is considerable incentive for the parties to preserve this entrenched system, so expect the major parties to form coalitions in order to retain their 'relevance'.
Clearly the problems in the ACT Party did not change their view of the MMP.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Safety for tourists in NZ and Australia

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It is not just me, but clearly others have noted a trend for foreigners to die in NZ. There are two reasons:
1. Some locals are just not happy that their country is seemingly being overrun by foreigners.
2. There are a lot of foreigners driving on unsafe rural roads, engaging in unsafe 'extreme' sports.

NZ is actually a surprisingly unsafe country. There is a lot of domestic violence. One gets the sense that there is a lot of tough love, that people suffer a great deal of psychological repression, and on occasion they just explode. Whether it is the tourist who gets shot at, or burned to death in his campervan, you are advised to keep a low profile in NZ. The problem of course is that 'isolated' areas are often more sensitive to your presence than others. i.e. If there is no local business in town making money from you, expect that there will little empathy for you.

Interested in how many foreigners are dying in NZ - apparently its around 2000 for the last 10 years. Wow, that is 200 per year. I might add that there was a period in Australia, where I was inclined to feel that there was some racially-inspired attacks on foreigners, whether it was the killing of a Korean or Indian man, often taxi drivers, or the rape of a Japanese tourist in some resort town, or the knifing of some European backpackers.
There is a lot of bad press in NZ. Though I must say, living outside of Australia, matters seem to have deteriorated there as well. NZ is definitely worse.

The land of milk and honey

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NZ - read it and weep - or join the rush....but don't trip over your mates.

NZ Property Guide Philippine Real Estate Guide Japan Foreclosed Guide

Mobile broadband coverage in NZ

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Thinking about getting mobile broadband in NZ. You might want to check out the following map from Telecom NZ. I am not sure whether this inter-connects with Vodafone's network, so you might want to look at their coverage too. I think they are completely separate.
It is noteworthy however that coverage declines significantly in bad weather, or along the coast, so you might want to look at a fixed point broadband to the door.
I would suggest that mobile coverage is not so much the issue, as the expense of it. The capacity available for mobile broadband is highly restrictive (i.e. expensive). So the prospects of working from a campervan might be just a dream at this point....at least in NZ.

Monday, January 3, 2011

What NZ needs to do to become viable

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NZ is currently in pretty poor financial straits, however it has a great future. The nature of its mismanagement is similar to other countries, though its solution ought to be a little different. The principle problem in NZ is:
1. Low savings - The solution would be to make the 'economic surplus' discretionary is employers can reduce pay in tough times; whilst increasing savings by getting NZ'ers spending less. The amazing thing is that we are all worried about 'the levels of consumption' and greenhouse, yet a pure capitalist economy would resolve these issues, and create jobs at the same time. i.e. The 'mixed economy' is bad for the environment.
2. Low value work - By giving companies the discretion to lower wages, i.e. to offer surplus as a bonus, like in Japan, companies have an incentive to absorb the surplus labour which would about buoy wage levels, as well as attract new investment. NZ has to be competitive to overcome its disadvantages.
3. Inefficient and corrupt/extortionate market structures - There are two many extortionate market regimes in NZ. The worst is the building trade, where tradesmen are able to recoup the savings for materials purchased for the benefit of clients, then mark those products up to the client. They then work 3 days a week. The lack of competition in the building industry is part of the problem.
4. Extortion from government, i.e. Taxation is coercion. In this area, the NZ is no worse, and a little bit better than most governments. It has punitive fine policies, but not as aggressive as the USA or Australia. Local government has a strong welfare element.


'Buying NZ Property – Download the free sample readings!

NZ presents some of the most alluring property in the Western World; particularly given the greater easy of residency, the low cost of property, and the liveability of the country. In addition, there is no capital gains tax, transfer taxes, VAT/GST or wealth taxes in NZ, so rest assured that NZ property is tax-effective! Learn more now!

New Zealand Property Report 2010 - Download the table of contents or buy this 180-page report at our online store for just $US19.95.


Japan Foreclosed Property 2015-2016 - Buy this 5th edition report!

Over the years, this ebook has been enhanced with additional research to offer a comprehensive appraisal of the Japanese foreclosed property market, as well as offering economic and industry analysis. The author travels to Japan regularly to keep abreast of the local market conditions, and has purchased several foreclosed properties, as well as bidding on others. Japan is one of the few markets offering high-yielding property investment opportunities. Contrary to the 'rural depopulation' scepticism, the urban centres are growing, and they have always been a magnet for expatriates in Asia. Japan is a place where expats, investors (big or small) can make highly profitable real estate investments. Japan is a large market, with a plethora of cheap properties up for tender by the courts. Few other Western nations offer such cheap property so close to major infrastructure. Japan is unique in this respect, and it offers such a different life experience, which also makes it special. There is a plethora of property is depopulating rural areas, however there are fortnightly tenders offering plenty of property in Japan's cities as well. I bought a dormitory 1hr from Tokyo for just $US30,000.
You can view foreclosed properties listed for as little as $US10,000 in Japan thanks to depopulation and a culture that is geared towards working for the state. I bought foreclosed properties in Japan and now I reveal all in our expanded 350+page report. The information you need to know, strategies to apply, where to get help, and the tools to use. We even help you avoid the tsunami and nuclear risks since I was a geologist/mining finance analyst in a past life. Check out the "feedback" in our blog for stories of success by customers of our previous reports.

Download Table of Contents here.