That Home Loan Hub
Welcome to That Home Loan Hub, your ultimate guide to mastering the world of home loans and property. I'm Zebunisso Alimova, here to simplify the complexities of real estate and provide you with expert insights and the latest trends.
Whether you're a first-time homebuyer, an experienced investor, or simply curious about the property market, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we unlock the secrets to property success and help you make informed decisions. Let's dive into the world of property together!
That Home Loan Hub
How NZ Retirement Villages Signal The Next Housing Cycle
Markets have a way of whispering before the economy speaks. We zoom into New Zealand’s most telling tickers—retirement village operators and a key challenger bank—to read what might be next for housing, credit, and confidence. If you live and breathe property, these listed signals can become your early-warning system and your roadmap.
We unpack why Somerset’s steadier execution and Ryman’s rebound matter far beyond their share prices, touching everything from build pipelines to downsizing demand in Auckland, Melbourne, and beyond. Then we turn to Heartland Bank and its lending to vehicles, agriculture, and reverse mortgages, explaining how a lift in this one stock can hint at improving sentiment months before it shows up in auction rooms or clearance rates. Along the way, we talk listed property trusts, cap rates, and the quiet interplay between funding costs and valuations that shapes investment returns.
The conversation gets candid too. We own up to “midnight share shopping,” celebrate an accidental Fonterra win, and stress the one rule that outperforms most hot tips: spend less than you earn so you never have to sell good assets to pay for life. From small Sharesies top-ups to teaching kids about compounding, the theme is the same—invest where you hold an edge, keep risk small while you learn, and let market indicators guide your timing rather than your identity. Keen to turn property knowledge into smarter market reads without the jargon?
Subscribe, share this episode with a mate who loves a good chart, and leave a review telling us which NZ ticker you watch first when the cycle turns.
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Hello and welcome back to that Homlon Hub. I am joined by our resident uh economist, James.
SPEAKER_00:Professor James, they like to call me.
SPEAKER_01:Professor James. Hello, Professor James.
SPEAKER_00:Kioto.
SPEAKER_01:Kiara. Where's the Kora? Kiora. Kiora. Awesome. Uh, what are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we had such a great start to the last chat, didn't we? We started talking about this the financial markets and and and stocks on on our local market here. Um, which I thought thought was really interesting because if you're interested in property and you want to track how the property market is sort of doing, you there's there are some listed companies on the New Zealand stock market and Australian stock market um that quite that can be quite appealing. Um and they've been going for a real tough patch over the last say four or five years, three or four years.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So if you want to look at um your names? Yep, we can name some names. So like look at the retirement villages and aged care. So you've got Ryman is sort of bouncing back off low, really bad lows of about$2.50. Um Oceania Healthcare, another they're they're quite big into the aged care as well. Um Somerset? Somerset, yep. Somerset's a quite a good, well-performing one.
SPEAKER_01:If you look that way, can you see that hill over there? That's all Somerset. They've built that super fast. Yeah. When I first moved in here, there was nothing across that hill from me. And the other day I went for a walk there, and I was like, holy moly, they've been building up like mushrooms in there. So obviously it's booming.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Somerset and Ryman are really developing a lot, and they've also uh doing a lot of villages in uh Melbourne and Victoria. Oh so they're the two the two biggest and the two best known. Okay. Um Somerset has been performing a bit better than Ryman. Ryman's gone for a bit of a a touchy period, but they look to be coming out of that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Not financial advice, don't go and buy it. Um and then you've got other ones like, you know, even something like Heartland Bank, which is more of a it's more of a a second tier lender, I suppose you'd call a non-bank. Well, they're bank, they're a bank, so um, but they lend to if you want to track Heartland Bank, that gives you a good idea of how the New Zealand economy is going. Because they lend to motor for motor vehicles, they lend to the agriculture sector.
SPEAKER_01:They do a lot of asset lending and reverse mortgages, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So and you might have just seen that that company has come off from eighty cents to about a dollar ten now, and probably in two or three months.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Um which is good, but unless you bought it like me at a dollar eighty, then hey, then you're not it's not doing quite so well. But it's it just shows you that perhaps the you know the markets uh listed stocks are usually about six months ahead of how the economy is doing. Um so you know if it's lifting, then it means it's if we're seeing that maybe six months mid-next year, we uh things should be doing a bit better. So it's a good way to just keep an eye on things, especially if you're interested in the property sector. Um there's there's listed trusts as well, property trusts that own office properties and um and things like that.
SPEAKER_01:And this is not a financial advice, like we are not investment advisors, we're just normal people sharing our experiences, right? Because in the previous episode I mentioned that suddenly I realized I've got shares with Fontera because I just buy through sharesies, I've got this automated payment come out every month. I just put$200 in and I just see, you know, and I just buy random ones. Honestly, it's mostly in the middle of the night where I'm bored and I want to do online shopping. Yeah, so instead of online shopping, I jump in and I do share shopping. That's good. So I just go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, random. I never track anything because I'm just shocking at tracking things. Um, property is what I love, property is what I do, I know, I understand. Shares is I don't. So I just press buttons.
SPEAKER_00:I think you can extrapolate from what you know here in the property market to the financial markets and focus on property, and you'd probably do really, really well because you're already in the industry, you know what's going on. Um and it would be the same if you had a farm. Follow agricultural stocks, you know, use your experience. Like it would it's it's it's a tough area to to to make money in if you're outside outside your area of competence. Yeah. But if you know what if you know the industry, but you know, it's it's I would definitely suggest it. And I'm beginning to see a lot of clients with you know, significant shares these accounts that that probably just doing the same as what you're doing, get a little spare money, don't really want to put it in savings.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um well for me, I satisfy that online shopping craving that I have every now and then, where I'm like, oh, if I buy this, you know, but then I'm like, oh, it's just junk buying, you know, and putting more stuff into my house. So I'd rather buy share. Exactly. And the kids are doing really well as well, like they buy their own shares, they choose their own shares, so that's really cool as well.
SPEAKER_00:Very educational, that's really cool. And you can do it a smaller amount, so you you know, you it's not as risky.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. And and yeah, and that's what I was saying. That I just realized that Fontera went from four dollars to eight dollars all of a sudden within a year. And I was like, wow, that's a big, big change.
SPEAKER_00:And um big turnaround in that company, so exactly good good invest things, Evan Eso.
SPEAKER_01:I know, well done, well done. My online shopping paid off, but um, yeah, guys. I mean, I have this uh lady I interviewed recently and she does investment advice and she can you know talk to people about managed funds and things like that. So um, so there are specialists out there again, you know, just like with us, if you want to buy a house or get an insurance, you reach out to us. If you want an investment advice, reach out to proper investment advisors out there. Don't don't be like me, don't do shopping in the middle of the night buying random shares. Because I think some of the shares are not doing that great.
SPEAKER_00:No, we only talk about the good ones, don't we? We're willing to talk about the good ones. Exactly. I mean, I sold Fontera at$4, I think.
SPEAKER_01:So Oh no, James! You know, should have kept it.
SPEAKER_00:Good old days are we were this is what happens when you spend more than you earn. So you have to it's really good practice to get into a a routine of actually earning uh earning more than you spend every month. If you spend more than you earn, then you end up selling you know assets or investments to pay for your consumption. So it's just generally speaking, if you can try and earn uh earn more than you spend every month, it's um I know it's hard every month to do it, but generally, consistently, um, then you are going to be successful financially over the medium to long term.
SPEAKER_01:Um Exactly, because that's what I exactly what I was just saying last night, that you could be earning a million, but if you spend a million and a half, then you're not better off, you know. So what you earn and what you do with that money is important because you could be still earning 100k, but if you spend only 20, then you know you're 80k better off than the person that's earning a million. So it's what you do with your money and how smart you are. And I'm not saying, you know, live on an absolute savage lifestyle of not spending money at all, but there there's got to be a balance between wasting your money and investing it in things.
SPEAKER_00:Even if you're on a lower income, I'm seeing some families that are just so good with their money, they are really good. And you can see once the kids just go to school and the wife goes on just in this case it's the wife that goes back to work, not the man that goes back to work. Um you can see when that happens, they are gonna be in such a good position because they have they've had to do it tough. Yeah, they haven't had much income and they've got they've got those really good habits. Whereas when you're earning more money, you know, you just tend to easy come, easy go, and you don't think about it.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:So you've really got to sort that out. I'm Professor James's work.
SPEAKER_01:You've been told by Professor James. Awesome guys, thank you so much for listening and uh we'll see you next time. Thank you, James. Hi, thank you. Goodbye.
