Thursday news in brief

Record Auckland investor sales

Investors accounted for a record 44% of Auckland’s house sales in the first quarter of 2017 which indicates investor activity is rebounding, according to CoreLogic’s latest data.

Labour’s housing spokesperson Phil Twyford said Auckland is now a “speculators’ paradise” where less than one in five house sales were to first homebuyers.

While investors’ market share has gone up from 35%, that of first home buyers has gone down from over 25% to 19%.

However, NZ Property Investor Federation executive officer Andrew King said that about 42% of properties in Auckland are rental properties and CoreLogic’s figure simply reflected that.

Read more: Investor confidence remains high across most of NZ

Investor lending share down

Total new mortgage lending to investors may have inched up in February but investors’ share of overall new lending was down, the Reserve Bank’s latest data reveals.

Investors were responsible for $1.149 billion of new lending in February, as compared to $961 million in January, which amounted to 26% of the total new lending – well down from the peak of 38% in June 2016.

It is generally considered that this drop in new lending to investors is an indication of the impact the Reserve Bank’s latest investor focused LVRs have had.

However, CoreLogic has recently noted that while investors requiring a mortgage have reduced their activity, cash investors remain active.

Read more: Decline in investor lending continues

Maintenance cost rundown

Around 60% of rental properties don’t require any general maintenance in any given month, a new analysis of Barfoot & Thompson’s rental database shows.

Further, looking at the costs of general maintenance when averaged across all properties, the cost of maintenance each month was $82 or around $978 over a year, with houses costing the most and apartments the least.

Barfoot & Thompson Director Kiri Barfoot said maintaining a rental property doesn’t cost as much as many people think – but general maintenance is important to keep properties presentable, functional and comfortable for tenants.

“Replacement locks, leaky taps and toilets, broken door handles, and installing new smoke alarms are the most frequent jobs. Bigger jobs such as repainting tend to be infrequent and average out over time.”

Read more: Promoting warmer, drier rentals