Comments on: The business of property investing

By: Hamish

Hamish — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:42:38 +0000

I think the laws in this country favour the tenants, there is no need for a tenant to seek a certain type of landlord.

Why would you duplicate what the government is already doing well?

Do you really think that there are people looking to rent who place a well educated and professional land lord high on their list of priorities?

By: Rajesh

Rajesh — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:09:21 +0000

I think it is an excellent idea. Firstly, Code of Practice itself is a very big step forward. I am sure there are many many landlords who have gone into being a landlord by default i.e. they upgraded froma house in which they were living and rented it instead of selling it. Therer will be many more who are just one investment property landlords. Since Property investing for them is more of a part time passive investment they may not care much in educating themselves. These could be mum & dad type investors. However, point here is, as rightly pointed out, Property investment is a business and tenants are clients.It does not matter whether the renting is for few weeks or few months. Would we, as a customer, expect a store not to give us good service just because it was in operation for a small time OR the store is a SMALL SHOP or a PART TIME TRADER? I am very pro to the idea.

By: John

John — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:05:32 +0000

The was a similar situation with franchising. The Franchise Association in NZ was set up in 1997 and one of the questions asked was whether or not to create a code. It was decided to do so and for members to agree to it. Those who did not would leave the association. Some did leave. In Australia the code was compulsory by legislation. NZ considered that by creating a code within the membership legislation could be avoided. Since then there has been a swing towards a compulsory code, mainly to ‘get rid of cowboys’ – especially with some of the franchise fiascos in the last few years.
What has this to do with Property? Well there are lots of parallels between the associations. However there is one major difference. There are far more landlords and it is far more likely that ‘accidental’ landlords will enter and leave the industry. There are many fine lines between a straight investment, renting ones property for a few months while away, renting out the bach or second home and so on.
It is likely that any code would be impractical to enforce.
Even if I as an investor say that I would adhere to it, it is likely that at times due to the circumstances that I fail to meet the standards of maintenance etc as I wait for the funds and time to undertake a task (or as in over the winter wait for the weather to improve so I could get on the roof to inspect a problem and make the repair).

By: John

John — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:28:09 +0000

First the NZPIF would need to become a professional body with the interest of the stakeholders in mind rather than that of the “self promoters”.

250,000 landlord’s vs a couple of thousand NPIF members. Why’s that?

Job vs Business
If you got a job you’ve got to do it. If you got a business why wouldn’t you get a property manager to manage the tenants and the properties.