Steve McKnight

Looking at the most recent unemployment numbers, we've been hovering just above 5%.

We peaked at 5.4%.

It's come down a little bit.

The Reserve Bank's forecasting that we're going to stick around that 5% mark, going up to 5.4% before coming down.

That does interrupt the decrease that they were projecting.

Again, we were above five.

They were thinking it was going to slowly come down.

Under this new world that we live in, they're expecting that we're going to keep unemployment where it is before dropping down as well.

That had happened later in 2027, 2028.

But just before we wrap up, my favorite thing to talk about, house prices.

Where's their head at with house prices?

I mean, is this just going to kill house price growth?

Well, it's a bit like the S&P 500, right?

You might see that the market's completely flat.

If half the stocks on a valuation basis go up by 10% and half the stocks go down by 10%, then the market's averaged at nothing.

But if you happen to invest and hold some shares in the companies that did well, then...

you potentially did.

And of course, I know it's not that simple, but that's what I've been saying to investors who own property in the South Island at the moment.

Like, if you're in Christchurch, it doesn't matter to you that the national house price is flat necessarily because Christchurch house prices are up like 12% since the bottom of the market, averaging an increase of about 4% compounding per year.

So you might be pretty happy if you bought at the right time there or have owned a property in Christchurch for a wee while.