ANZ sees 32% fall in wage-adjusted house prices

TLDR: The Labour Government faces the prospect at next year’s election of house prices being down 22% from their peak and 10% below their pre-covid levels once adjusted for wage inflation, if ANZ’s latest forecasts pan out.

That would be on top of an unemployment rate rising towards 5% and inflation still above 6% if the Reserve Bank’s forecasts from last week also pan out. Re-election for a third term would be something of a political miracle for a Government already around two to five percentage points behind the Opposition in opinion polls.

Elsewhere in the news overnight and this morning here and overseas:

• China ramped up its vaccination programme for the elderly and clamped down on anti-covid protests, encouraging investors hoping for an earlier covid-zero exit;

• data showed inflation sliding for the first time in Spain and Germany; and,

• a NIMBY in Auckland suburban Balmoral will fight to stop a townhouse re-development replacing this graffiti-ed dairy on character protection grounds, and with council officials’ support. Stuff

Neighbour Chao-Fu Wu has opposed a resource consent to redevelop this dilapidated dairy into three new homes on the grounds it would ruin the suburb’s character value and block his sunlight. A council advisor agreed with the NIMBY view. Screenshot from Stuff video.

Back to wage-adjusted square one