If you have ever felt as if you have lost out financially due to the poor conduct of a real estate agent then you might be interested in a change to the real estate agents act this week. Buyers and sellers can now apply for compensation of up to $100,000 if the conduct of a real estate agent has been found to be unsatisfactory by The Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal. The Real Estate Authority’s (REA) chief executive, Kevin Lampen-Smith says the introduction of compensation for unsatisfactory conduct will improve the ability for consumers to seek redress for losses suffered. Unsatisfactory conduct that may be considered for compensation could be licensees not disclosing problems with a property or misleading advertising that causes a consumer to suffer loss. Last year 296 complaints about estate agents were received and findings of unsatisfactory conduct have reduced by 35 per cent over the last three years to 102. The 2018 Census results showed that almost 319,000 homes were affected by damp. In figures just released Census results show that more than one in five homes were damp some or all of the time, and for renters, dampness was more than twice as common than for those who owned their home. Of those homes affected by damp, 44,520 were damp all the time (3.0 percent of all homes) and a further 274,371 were sometimes damp (18.5 percent of all homes). Compared with homes that were owned or held in a family trust, the homes of renters were about seven times more likely to be always damp. In the September quarter almost 190 homes were sold to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship or a resident visa. The figure is much reduced from the June 2018 quarter when it was 1,100. The government’s property statistics manager Melissa McKenzie says Home transfers to overseas people have fallen significantly since changes to the Overseas Investment Amendment Act came into force. She says Home transfers to overseas people are unlikely to ever reach zero because of exemptions for Australians, Singaporeans, and some property developers and overseas-based apartment investors. New data shows that overseas investors are selling more property than they are buying. In September overseas owners sold 309 properties. The ANZ bank has announced its annual profit and I hope you’re sitting down. While it’s 8% less that a year ago, it made a profit in the year to September of $1.8 billion. So its double and triple all-round. The number of newly consented high-density homes grew 22 percent in the September 2019 year, reaching almost 14,500, says Stats NZ. High-density or multi-unit homes include apartments, townhouses, flats and units, and retirement village units. Growth of these outpaced that of stand-alone houses, which grew 6.1 percent. Helping to drive this change is the country’s population growth. Up from 3 million in the mid 1970s to almost 5 million today. September’s dwelling consents are up 31% on a year ago. Interest rates. Plenty of people are predicting the Reserve bank will cut the official cash rate on 13 November to 0.75% from its current 1%. There’s even talk of the OCR going down to zero percent. A sure sign of an economic slowdown; 2021 could be a tough year for some. Following the GFC some countries had a negative OCR – forcing savers to pay their bank to look after their cash. Fixed rate home loans will follow the downward trajectory. So don’t rush to fix if you don’t have to, and haggle to get the best rate when you do. How low can they go? Time will tell.