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Source: ONE News -
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Startling new figures reveal the full extent of New Zealand's property market slump, with mortgagee sales at a 15 year high.
Property information company Terralink has compiled the first comprehensive study of forced sales.
December saw 191 registered mortgagee sales, the highest number in the 15 years that records have been kept.
That's a whopping 290% increase from the previous year.
"We were quite surprised by the speed at which it was happening," says Terralink managing director Mike Donald.
Early indications show even more mortgagee sales in January.
"January is normally a slow month for the country with everything on holiday, so we're anticipating the February figures will continue to rise," says Donald.
Auckland is the worst affected, with 80 forced sales in December.
Terralink says that finance companies are behind many of the sales, suggesing that the credit crunch is hurting them more than trading banks. A second wave of mortgagee sales is also predicted caused by the massive number of redundancies expected to hit the economy.
Market watchers say other countries are even worse-hit.
"The US is recording for the whole of 2008 45% foreclosures, the equivalent of mortgagee sales, so we're nowhere near the extent of that dramatic scale," says Alistair Helm of realestate.co.nz.
