'Mortgagee' sales proving popular
By MICHAEL FOX - Stuff.co.nz | Thursday, 04 December 2008
Embattled homeowners are playing to the growing popularity of the mortgagee market, as the deflating economy makes property harder to sell.
Real estate websites TradeMe and Realestate.co.nz have seen listings and searches for mortgagee sales boom in the last year.
On face value, auction site TradeMe has five times the number of mortgagee listings as the same time last year; there are 234 sales currently listed with the keyword mortgagee, compared with 47 last December.
However, TradeMe head of property Brendon Skipper said not all sales using mortgagee as a keyword were in fact mortgagee sales.
"Some of them are obviously putting the word mortgagee in their listings to generate interest."
For example, a listing saying the seller wanted to avoid a mortgagee sale, would register as a mortgagee listing. It increases the number of hits the listing gets because mortgagee sales are one of the most popular searches on the site.
Mr Skipper said TradeMe did not keep a record of sales, but feedback from the industry suggested the new techniques were working.
The tactic was part of a wider trend of sellers taking a more proactive approach. Keywords such as "motivated" and "mortgagee" were appearing more often, with buyers keen to emphasise their willingness to sell.
"Beforehand, where it was a sellers market there tended to be a tilt to not putting as many photos in and just having a brief description ... I think people now are certainly getting smarter with their marketing," he said.
"People are certainly using that strong language to get people looking at their listings."
Real estate site Realestate.co.nz has also seen a huge spike in the number of properties listed with mortgagee in the description. They had 309 listings in November, compared with 70 in the same month last year.
Chief Executive Alistair Helm said the value of the mortgagee sales on the site ranged from a $2.4 million property in Russell, to $95,000 in Westport.
Mortgagee was consistently the top search on their site, though mortgagee sales made up less than half a per cent of their total listings.
Meanwhile, homeowners have seen some relief today with the Reserve Bank cutting the official cash rate by 1.5 percentage points to five per cent. Several of the major banks responded and moved to lower lending rates.
Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard put the pressure on the banks to pass on the relief to borrowers.
"To ensure the response we are seeking, we expect financial institutions to play their part in the economic adjustment process by passing on lower wholesale interest rates to their customers," he said.
By MICHAEL FOX - Stuff.co.nz | Thursday, 04 December 2008
Embattled homeowners are playing to the growing popularity of the mortgagee market, as the deflating economy makes property harder to sell.
Real estate websites TradeMe and Realestate.co.nz have seen listings and searches for mortgagee sales boom in the last year.
On face value, auction site TradeMe has five times the number of mortgagee listings as the same time last year; there are 234 sales currently listed with the keyword mortgagee, compared with 47 last December.
However, TradeMe head of property Brendon Skipper said not all sales using mortgagee as a keyword were in fact mortgagee sales.
"Some of them are obviously putting the word mortgagee in their listings to generate interest."
For example, a listing saying the seller wanted to avoid a mortgagee sale, would register as a mortgagee listing. It increases the number of hits the listing gets because mortgagee sales are one of the most popular searches on the site.
Mr Skipper said TradeMe did not keep a record of sales, but feedback from the industry suggested the new techniques were working.
The tactic was part of a wider trend of sellers taking a more proactive approach. Keywords such as "motivated" and "mortgagee" were appearing more often, with buyers keen to emphasise their willingness to sell.
"Beforehand, where it was a sellers market there tended to be a tilt to not putting as many photos in and just having a brief description ... I think people now are certainly getting smarter with their marketing," he said.
"People are certainly using that strong language to get people looking at their listings."
Real estate site Realestate.co.nz has also seen a huge spike in the number of properties listed with mortgagee in the description. They had 309 listings in November, compared with 70 in the same month last year.
Chief Executive Alistair Helm said the value of the mortgagee sales on the site ranged from a $2.4 million property in Russell, to $95,000 in Westport.
Mortgagee was consistently the top search on their site, though mortgagee sales made up less than half a per cent of their total listings.
Meanwhile, homeowners have seen some relief today with the Reserve Bank cutting the official cash rate by 1.5 percentage points to five per cent. Several of the major banks responded and moved to lower lending rates.
Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard put the pressure on the banks to pass on the relief to borrowers.
"To ensure the response we are seeking, we expect financial institutions to play their part in the economic adjustment process by passing on lower wholesale interest rates to their customers," he said.
Comment