Thinking about investment property in Auckland or other places throughout New Zealand? You better start acting quickly. The New Zealand housing market is proving quite the buyer’s dream at the moment.

With property prices the lowest in years, it seems baby boomers (those aged 44-62) are jumping on the low mortgage rates bandwagon and investing in new homes. There was a staggering 45% increase in real estate mortgage applications last month (compared to March 2008) by baby boomers. Those younger than the group in mention are also increasingly trying to buy property; there has been a 34% increase in 28-43 year olds applying for mortgages over the same period last year.

This activity seemingly reflects the lower interest rates invigorating demand, and is showing that investment property is continuing to give good rates of return. The market are jumping at the chance to get fixed terms locked in at these rates, so brush up on your real estate NZ knowledge and pick up a great new property!

With the OCR at a record low of 3.5%, it’s a great time to invest in a new house as you can get a low mortgage rate, but those with savings investments get the short stick with lower interest rates. Investing definitely has its ups and downs.

Are investments ever absolutely safe? Cars and houses can depreciate, stocks can fall and businesses can have rocky times, so of course not. However, having savings in the bank is a pretty safe investment to have, and believe it or not, you can still get great, competitive interest rates. While the market average interest rate is 3.55% from the big banks in New Zealand at the moment, there are online banking services which can give you an on-call interest rate of 4.50%.

How do they do this? Online banks have no branches and no tellers, meaning smaller overheads. Smaller overheads means small margins need to be made to cover costs, so instead of contributing to a bank branch’s power bill, you get a higher interest rate (meaning more interest earnings in your account). Nice to know that in these financially challenging times you can still get a high interest rate, isn’t it?