Tuesday, 25 March 2014

Amber Haddock "Low rents deter home buyers"

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business/residential-property/9780644/Low-rents-deter-home-buyers


Blog 7
The article released by The Dominion Post forecasts how people are being discouraged from buying there own homes as renting prices are low (NZPIF).

Andrew King whom is an executive officer for New Zealand Property Investors Federation states that owning an average home is about $138 more expensive a week than the cost of renting a similar property. "A lot of people will say they can save that $138 by renting, that's cash in their hand right now, so most will think that's a good thing to do," (King).

Rent was estimated to cost about $450 a week which would total out to cost tenants around $23,400 to live in, to own a house NZPIF estimated the the normal rate of an average house is a 20% deposit, 25 year mortgage with 5.75% interest so homeowners were looking at paying anything over $25,655. For landlords and property investors a landlord would be paying around $21,975 a year in mortgage payments, plus additional cost such as insurance, maintenance etc which does not fall down to the tenants responsibility.  "That would take the owner-occupier's total costs to $30,593 a year, which means they would be paying $7193 a year ($138 a week) more than a tenant" (King).

In 2013 a similar investigation was taken out by NZPIF comparing homeownership to renting and the difference in price was calculated at $108 more expensive to own a house than to rent and this year has increased to $138 a week which is quite a difference which means the gap is widening fast. This results in mortgage repayments and additional costs to homeowners is increasingly widening and cost for property owners is rising faster than rent.

Because interest rates are low this may be the result of low rent prices as landlords cash flow is better. Due to the gap continuously increasing between prices of homeownership and rent, this may mean that in the near future rent prices have the opportunity to increase to keep up with market prices and close the gap of the difference in price. "King estimated that, using the NZPIF's cost example, the rent would need to rise 10 per cent to $495 a week to provide a satisfactory return". "Landlords should be looking at prevailing rents in the areas in which they owned properties to see if they needed to increase their rents, King said. “It may be easier to make smaller increases now than larger increases in future when trying to keep up with cost increases,"  (King).

Main focus point featured in the article: The increase in rental prices is not rising to be in balance with the increase in property price sales.

The article released by the dominion post relates to Welly Real-estate as it gives evidence towards the property market continually increasing which is fleeing off potential buyers and pushing willing buyers to be forced to settle with renting as opposed to buying. This is a worry for Welly Real Estate.

Advise to Welly Real-Estate could be to focus the business on property management as the market at present suggests that many people are choosing to rent over homeownership and this could be a niche in the market that Welly Real-estate could direct there business and further generate income. Welly real estate could be in charge of taking on properties from landlords and managing them whilst receiving a commission. In regards to the article mentioning more people are choosing to rent this could be quite beneficial to Welly Real-estate as they market for this is increasing and they have the chance to expand the business in this way.

Works Cited:

Kiernan, G. “More people choosing to rent”. Web. May 2. 2014. http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business/residential-property/9844647/More-people-choosing-to-rent


McCrackin, H. "Property Values Climb". Web. March 16. 2014. 




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