Taking care of your gardens and landscaping is one of the key ways you can 
add street appeal and value to your property. We recently discussed some handy tips and tricks with Lloyd from Hamilton’s Wairere Gardens to help you make the most of your grounds this summer.
Knowing what your garden needs from you in each season is vital to its upkeep. At this time of year the most important thing to remember is to mulch your garden to conserve the moisture during the hotter months and make it easier for weeding. Traditionally trees would have already been planted earlier in the year but if you’re looking to put something down now perennials are great for brightening up your garden.
One of the strongest trends we have seen in recent years has been to fill your garden with bright colours and one of the easiest ways to do this in summer is with rose bushes. Bold pops of colour and trees placed to frame your home are great ways to add street appeal to your property.
If you’re looking for a way to easily maintain your garden throughout the year mass plantings with contrasting foliages is an effective look only requiring low maintenance.
Wairere Gardens have a comprehensive website which you can view here- www.wairere.co.nz that is full of instructions and tips for everything from how to prune, spraying regimes and a catalogue of all their plants.
sameiStock_000005153709Small_We month a year ago. A total of 217 sales were reported, this was up on October’s 211 sales and well up on the 170 sales of November 2008. However, there has been a small drop in volumes since the winter months.
Hamilton Real Estate Recovery
As we head into Christmas the Hamilton real estate market’s recovery continues to gather momentum.
It is our expectation that November’s volume of 211 house sales will be bettered in December. Of greater interest is the number of contracts written in December but that will become unconditional in January is 35% higher than in the same period last year. This gives us confidence that the market will continue to improve during early 2012.
We have observed that first home buyers are particularly active in the market. Many have delayed their purchase decisions as they were concerned about job security, house price stability and wanted a bigger deposit to get started with. However, many Hamilton businesses have coped well with the recession and are now showing early signs of expansion. Hamilton house prices have also remained relatively stable over the last four years. Couple this with wage growth and bigger deposits and smart young house buyers are sensing that moving early may avoid pitting themselves in competition with a growing number of young house buyers or investors. If they have done their homework they will also be aware of the low number of housing starts Hamilton has experienced during the last few years. This undersupply of new homes looms as an inflationary threat to house prices.
Of even greater importance to the market have been the types of housing that first home buyers have been buying. Earlier in the year there was a large pool of investment housing bought by first home buyers. Investors were exiting residential rentals to rebalance their own balance sheets and therefore did not buy again. Empirical evidence suggests that recently first home buyers have been purchasing the homes of first home sellers. This is freeing these sellers to re-purchase in the city and create greater momentum through the entire Hamilton real estate market.