Net immigration falling

[fudosan]

Today's NZ Herald reported that net migration is declining, but it did not give a clear picture. So I went to Statistics NZ's website, downloaded several Excel files, and came up with the following figures.

2004
Jan (+3980)
Feb (+3440)
Mar (-320)
Apr (-70)
May (-590)

(If interested, go to http://www.stats.govt.nz/domino/exte...ation+Releases)

This indicates a major driver of the housing market, Auckland in particular, is working against it. Another interesting thing is that the sharp fall in arrivals has been the 15-24 age group from Asia, which I suspect are mainly English language students. Since they create only temporary housing demand, when they are gone, would that leave a lot of empty houses?

I read more and more bad news, indicating bad (or good?) time is coming. Happy investing!

[muppet]

Hi Fudosan

You say:

the sharp fall in arrivals has been the 15-24 age group from Asia, which I suspect are mainly English language students. Since they create only temporary housing demand, when they are gone, would that leave a lot of empty houses?

Those who are expecting to rent out their small CBD boxes to those people should be the ones to worry as their source of tenants appears to be drying up.

Regards