Cooking The Books

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's how to detangle the housing situation and make the most of it. Hosted by Frances Cook.The housing market is one where there’s always winners and losers. Buyers want low prices, owners want high prices, so whatever market forces are at play someone usually ends up disappointed.The problem is right now, things are so uncertain.We do have early indicators to help us read the tea leaves. The latest figures are for March, which take us just six days into lockdown, and it’s already looking rough out there. National house sale data from the Real Estate Institute shows we’ve hit a nine year low, with the numbers of houses for sale down almost five percent. When figures come out showing the rest of the lockdown it’s unlikely to get any prettier, but the real question is what will happen when lockdown lifts. We just don’t know.However whether you’re a buyer or a seller, I’m a big believer that no matter wh