What would it take for house prices to cool down?

Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's the forces behind house prices, and what's likely to happen next. Hosted by Frances Cook. <br /><br />If you've paid even the slightest attention to the news lately you'll know house prices have spiraled up past even the most optimistic expectations. <br /><br />It's led to intense bidding wars, buyers offering tens of thousands above asking price just to secure their spot, banks reporting backlogs of mortgage applications … frankly, it's a housing feeding frenzy. <br /><br />Now while house prices are something that makes people feel rich if they already own a place, I do feel for the frustrated first home buyers who struggle to keep up with this flurry of activity. <br /><br />Another issue is that when there's this level of emotive buying in a market, it tweaks my spidey senses. <br /><br />Emotions and money are a bad combination, and can lead to bad outcomes in the end. <br /><br />So how can you make sense of what's going, and what's likely to happen next? <br /><br />For the latest podcast I talked to independent economist Tony Alexander. <br /><br />If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/" rel="noopener">https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/</a> Instagram here <a href="https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/" rel="noopener">https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/</a> and Twitter here <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancesCook" rel="noopener">https://twitter.com/FrancesCook</a>