In the meantime there can be natural disasters, changes in policy, turns in the property market, restrictions on borrowing and a whole host of other third-party factors. "Auckland Council compliance people are reporting a one third failure rate of new buildings," says Townsend. It is a popular trope, he adds, that property developers are slightly suspect. They can't hand out money to every would-be property developer even if they wanted to. BNZ economist Tony Alexander also noted late last year that bank lending to property developers had slowed.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 06, 2017 00:00 UTC