New Zealand is a great place to live and real estate is very popular with Kiwis and overseas buyers.

The credit crunch has reached NZ and real estate has been affected, house prices have dropped in general and buyers have a good choice of properties to look over.

Use this site each day to search various websites and to gain updated info on the housing market.

Modern homes, character villas, lifestyle blocks - you'll find it all here in the north and south islands of New Zealand.

On the right hand side are links to websites of agencies who are members of the Real Estate Institute of NZ (MREINZ) and below those are other websites of non members.

The most popular New Zealand real estate website is
Trademe Property followed by the MREINZ main site Realestate.co.nz.

Other important links for gathering information including searching for companies info are continually being added.

In NZ, the seller is called the "vendor" and real estate agencies in the main, represent the vendor and are paid a commission by the vendor only upon selling, normally using a "sales and purchase" agreement, which may or not be conditional, in which case the sale is confirmed once the agreement has become "unconditional".

Possession of the property is normally done once the agreement between the vendor and the buyer has been "settled" (paid in full).

Sellers who do not use a real estate agent are referred to as "Private sellers" and their "listings" (Properties for sale) will not appear on any MREINZ websites.

Private sellers make up perhaps 10 - 22% approx of the market - and this figure may be rising?

It pays to do your homework, information is king when making property decisions.