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Run-down Houses Appearing On The Market
Susan Edmunds, Money Correspondent
Property investor Steve Goodey says he's noticing a trend in properties for sale at the moment - many that have been lived in up until recently don't look as if they should have been.
He has posted photos to his social media followers in recent days, highlighting the issue.
"There have been so many of them in the last couple of weeks."
The most recent one was an owner-occupied home in Wellington's Stokes Valley.
"Normally it's dependency issues or mental health issues. People become entrenched in their property in their old age and just want the status quo. Family often can't do anything about it, can't help."
He said the properties were often worth significant amounts in the land alone, and that could be enough to move people into much better condition housing.
Goodey said he expected to see more come to the market as it went through a "cleanout" phase.
"We're watching interest rates come down but there's a flow-on effect. People don't get to realise a lower interest rate for sometimes a couple of years. A lot of people out there who are slightly less educated in real estate and might have fixed long for a relatively high rate and they're under some stress."
Another property investor, Michael Burge, said he regularly encountered run down houses with older tenants in them, or tenants who had been there a long time.
He said when properties in that condition were rented, they were likely to be charging a rent that was "way below" market value, so tenants were not likely to say anything.
Renters United president Zac Thomas said many rental properties were in poor states of repair.
He said they were not caught by the Healthy Homes rules because that was a system of self-certification. If tenants were not aware that their property did not meet the requirements, or did not want to raise an issue about it, they might go unnoticed.
That was why Renters United pushed for a warrant of fitness, in which owners would have to have someone independent come in and certify their properties were up to standard, at regular intervals, Thomas said.
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