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There are five strong forces acting to pull back the level of intensity of buyer demand for residential property at the moment. But just because the boom has ended does not mean a crash is on its way.

With investors backing off it is understandable that the pace of increase in house prices has slowed down. In the six months to September 2020, average house prices around New Zealand rose by just 4%, including a 3% fall over the April-May months.

On average, NZ house prices have risen by 35% since March 2020 when we went into the first nationwide lockdown. This week we're focusing on the growing list of reasons why the pace of house price inflation will slow quite sharply over 2022.

New Zealanders have over $320 billion of household debt, but what does that mean for house prices and for the wider economy?

I know from experience that accurately predicting house price movements over short periods of time is impossible. But one can balance the various factors in play and see what the trend seems to be and where it may be heading.

I love property. Early last year I wrote that I thought we were going into the last great property boom based on ultra-low interest rates and the increasing importance of having a home in the post COVID world.

The government this week clarified details of its housing tax policy changes announced on March 23, and they were slightly less bad than expected.

My own experience of two first home buyers 13 years apart shows that servicing hasn’t changed all that much. It's as hard today as it was 13 years ago. But what it doesn’t show is the sizeable part of our population that are locked out of the housing market altogether.

Nationwide average house sale prices rose by 2% in August. This followed a 2.4% rise in July, 1% gain in June, 0.8% rise in May and just a 0.5% rise in April.

Now that we are experiencing lockdown again, can we expect the same things to happen in the residential real estate market and economy as last time? No. There are some key differences between this situation and that of March 2020.

We're starting to see commentators and even the Reserve Bank talk about falling house prices towards the end of next year. We shouldn't be surprised that none of these predictions are from real estate companies who bring the figurative cocaine to the house party. Here's my perspective on house prices from the frontline.

Whenever things like the global pandemic, the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis, or tax policy alterations happen such as those announced on March 23, most of us can take a view on what the likely impact will be. Sometimes these views can be horribly wrong.