"We’re well and truly into the heat of the boom. We’re in that mid-phase of the boom and we’re about to enter the phase which is the final chapter," Trass says.
That’s when the market will inevitably over-heat.
Some might think, looking at how some properties are selling within days of coming on the market, that we might have already reached that point. Trass suggests that’s not even close to what was happening during the peak of the mid-1990s boom.
"Properties were selling before they hit the market." Rather than potential buyers putting in offers, "more often you were a backup waiting for someone else’s offer to fall over. This isn’t a frenzied market, although compared to a couple of years ago it looks like it’s out of control."
Another thing which isn’t happening yet is that those with a firm offer on a house aren’t being approached by real estate agents suggesting they can make a quick buck by letting someone else settle the sale. "That was rife in 1996."
While expectations that interest rates are low and falling, Trass criticises the Reserve Bank for not pushing them lower.
With 4.25 percentage points between the Federal Reserve’s federal funds rate (currently 1%) and the Reserve Bank’s Official Cash Rate (currently 5.25%), it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the New Zealand dollar is rising which is hurting exporters, just as they were hurt in the mid-1990s.
Rather than worrying about the housing market over-heating, the central bank should be cutting rates to stop the currency rising.
"They should let the housing market take its course. Let the market determine where it goes. If people get burnt because they lose lots of money at that end of the cycle, so be it," Trass says.
"The Reserve Bank’s not here to protect the banking industry. They’re here to regulate the banking industry. Their protectionism is damaging the whole economy, not just the few people who choose to invest in property."
