April 25, 2007
Numbers are good
Some days it is easy to forget that we're speedily moving towards a long damp dark winter. It was the ANZAC day today (the day of commemorating AU and NZ army in the II World War... and a day off from work). We spent the afternoon at Karekare and Piha beaches.
End of April in NZ should be about the same as end of October in Europe. Still, I can't remember myself falling asleep in the sun on the beach (in my spaghetti top) at the end of October anywhere in Europe!!! Not bad, eh?
Besides sleeping on the beach, this week I started calculating how much buying a house would cost here. I think, I mentioned before that everyone is really property crazy in here. The mortgage interest rates are very high (8.6%-9.8%), but Auckland houses seem to be selling like strawberries. Just this week 3 new "for sale" signs appeared in our street. Want it or not, you start feeling "outside" of all this craze and possibly "loosing out", if you're still renting.
It felt good to put the figures together and make it all rational, instead of the panicky emotional fuzzy general idea of a house. So I figured that our house value should appreciate more than 6% a year for us not to make loss (not even talking about making profit!!!). If it ever comes to us buying a house or not, it is so much easier to make the decision about numbers. Such a relief to take the emotion out of the equation! No nonsense of "missing our chance", "hopping on the bandwagon", etc... Numbers are good.
Posted by gkligyte at April 25, 2007 11:47 PM