It seems as each day goes by someone somewhere is saying buy property now whilst someone else is saying stay away. So what's the right answer?

Well Interest rates have been dropping however a subtle change has appeared in the last week or so, the banks have started putting the fixed rates up. Property sales volumes are at levels not seen for years and the prices have started to slide however lending criteria is harder than ever so getting the funding is becoming very difficult which means prices could go even lower.

Well just last week I thought I would get an agent in, someone who has been selling in my area for a long time and see whether or not one of my properties in the Bayfair area should be sold. The exercise would also give me some more feedback on if it's a good time to buy.

Mike is knowledgeable and has been selling in my street for years, in fact I bought the current property from him 4 years ago. I thought I would ask Mike to give me an idea of what my rental property would sell for in this market and I knew he would not try and "buy the listing" which is a practice where agents tell you a high number only to condition you over the marketing period into accepting a lower price.

The property is in the Bayfair area of the mount and has been a rental property for many years. The tenants love it as it is only a few minutes walk to the beach via either a beach access or along Concord Avenue. Bayfair is only a couple of minutes in the car and I am told you can walk there (I'm not a big walker) in about 12 minutes.

The information Mike gave me was not good news as a seller and so as I did the numbers I came to the conclusion that I should not sell the property as the rent I am currently getting is more than the interest I would save in paying out the loan. So this was a fairly easy calculation to do in this instance. The answer was don't sell.

But what about buying right now, well, if you take the above example and imagine that I had decided to sell the property you would be able to own that little piece of Mount Maunganui for $4 per week if you borrowed 100% of the money to purchase it and you were only on $40,000 per annum. That is amazing.

So should you buy? Again if you look at the above example the conclusion is pretty easy to see, Mount Maunganui still provides great long term growth prospects and if a property is only going to cost $4 per week to own then why wouldn't you. In ten years this recession and all the uncertainty it is causing will be a thing of the past and for all of us we will be ten years closer to retirement.

I say that there is neither a right nor wrong answer. Every single person, couple and family is different and so in my opinion you should only look to invest if you have sat down with a professional to see if an investment into property is appropriate for you and your situation, remember there are lots of other ways to invest.

In general though I believe we are seeing some of the best conditions ever for getting into the investment property market. So...If you don't have an investment property at the moment I would recommend finding out if you qualify for one , get as much information about investing in real estate as you can and then get into the market.

If you already have a lot of properties and a high level of debt then make sure you keep an eye on the numbers. If interest rates start creeping up and your holding costs become unbearable you may be forced to sell which is not a nice situation to be in, sell now if you think this might be the case.

If you are cashed up..... Buy property, buy it now and buy plenty of it.