Life as a Landlord

[Wayne]

And, you don't seem to get my point.

It is:

I will rent at market for a fixed term.

I will rent at market plus 15% for a periodic.

The tenant, in the end, pays for the convenience of being able to terminate. They pay for the risk to my client of bad credit. They pay for other items at the moment (eg lawns, whiteware) why not the added risk to my client?

You're right, I didn't get that you were charging a higher price for periodic.
Probably missed that since you started with "Fixed term. Security of income for the landlord. Lower rent charged" - lower rent charged rather than market rent charged.

[Keys]

You're right, I didn't get that you were charging a higher price for periodic.

'tiz a hard thing sometimes, getting an idea across via the written word.

[Bob Kane]

Yes, it can be.
The loudest people are usually the deafest.

[flyernzl]

As I write I am sitting in an apartment on Lord Howe Island. This island has no cellphone service and minimal internet access so I am well isolated from the news and other peoples views. The advantage of this getting away from all the heat and drama of normal life is that it does give me time to sit, think and ponder.

All land on Lord Howe belongs to the State, and if you are a bona fide local you can acquire a property on permanent lease. However, the criteria are strict – to be considered a local you must have lived on the island for at least ten years with an absence, during that time, of no more than six months. No buying a holiday home and just using it at Christmas and Easter here. Even after you have acquired your property you are forbidden to keep a cat (dogs are permitted under strict rules, which include posting a $1500 bond), are allowed only one motor vehicle per family, and are facing some of the highest household operating costs in Australia. The only rentals available are those belonging to the few families who are away on the mainland either for medical reasons or for education, each of those of course having a fixed end date.

Does the UN know that there is no access to housing as a matter of human rights on Lord Howe?

Each country I visit seems to have its own advantages and drawbacks. Do you want to live in a warm and peaceful Pacific paradise with a total absence of things that will hunt, attack and possibly kill you but then face paying a shipping cost of $520 per cubic metre for each and every item you need to bring in? Do you want indulge your petrol-head fantasies but then face an island-wide speed limit of 25km/h? If the answer is no then don’t come here.

Anyway, back to I’ve been thinking:
I started writing ‘Life as a Landlord’ back at the start of 2012. My intention was to crystalise my own thoughts around the day-to-day difficulties and advantages, the trials and triumphs of being an ordinary residential landlord possessing no special skills or advantages. I was, at that stage, just about to move into landlording as a full-time business, and indeed that move took place just a little while later.

However, since that time I seem to have become a lot more involved in the politics of this property business. My original dream for retirement, consisting of sitting under a palm tree on a nice sandy beach with a good book in one hand and a Pina Colada in the other while the rents rolled in, seems to have faded away and been replaced by far too much time spent arguing, defending, agitating and explaining. ‘Life as a Landlord’ has ended up reflecting this change and so moved away from my original intent. ‘Life as an Amateur Politician’ may well have been a more accurate title.

I had hopes that some publisher, somewhere, might pay me to write this sort of stuff. I have since found that this is not how it works. Most comment and advice produced for the property market and those who wish to learn about it is paid content, advertorial, written by people who want to sell you something. I did have one paid gig, but this did not last long as it was better business for that particular outlet to accept payment for publishing content rather than pay me in order to publish mine. I can get paid for writing on aviation matters, but not on property subjects.

So I am ending it. It has been an interesting exercise, and intellectually stimulating. Each month, thinking about and working through a particular discussion point has been a challenging process. That’s around one hundred think pieces, some of it written in and posted from fairly obscure places in the world. After each post, many of you have raised points and discussed issues that I have touched on. Thank you. You may have disagreed with things I have said here, but that’s fine. You may well be right, time will tell.

I will not stop writing, and I intend to continue contributing to Property Talk. I will now be able to separate the practical day-to-day matters from the political. I do have other projects within the property world to persue and you will hear about those over time.
For now, thanks for being a useful and appreciative audience.

[Perry]

The Last Chapter

Well, Peter, I - for one - am crestfallen. I shall miss your acuity on, and pithy insights into, the vagaries of Property Investment in NZ and the comparisons from around the world. Thank you for educating us, so. (And to M for her patience?)

I have recorded your monthly contributions over the years, in case you wanted to publish the entire saga. As an e-book or whatever.

It does seem that revolution, or at least LL civil disobedience, is all that's left for NZ property investors.

Have at them varlets! (In the drone house)

[Kaye]

Peter I have often read your muses with much regard for your personal take of Life as a Landlord your sage advice will be greatly missed by us all. Thank you.

[DazRaz]

Peter, I will miss your mini blog. It has been good reading your common sense take on residential property and observations on the shortcomings of the NZ environment.

[Davo36]

Thanks so much for doing this for so long Peter.

[flyernzl]

We all get it that the insulation law only addresses one part of a larger problem but rather than complaining how crappy it is be thankful the bureaucrats haven't passed a law trying to fix the whole thing at once and effectively putting all private LLs out of business.

How happy will we all be if the next law is, as well as insulation and smoke alarms, all rentals must have efficient heating and ventilation which is affordable to run by low/no income tenants.

We'll all have to provide solar power or free firewood with every rental property.

Of course to make these homes affordable for tenants they'll have to cap rents as well. No point having "warmer, dryer, healthier" homes if no one can afford to live in them.

Just found this post from 2017.

A scarily accurate forecast of what we have right now.

[donna]

^^ Yeah good find flyernzl

Learning is a futurist - what's coming next?

cheers,

Donna

[Perry]

Civil unrest / disobedience / anarchy?
Thought police?
Anyone's guess.

As Margaret Thatcher reportedly quipped: the problem with socialism is that one eventually runs out of other people's money to spend.

[Engineer]

Its a shit fight out there.
NZ Herald 4/3/23

Jewellery business owner and son to pay $27k for unpaid rent, repairs, subletting house

A mother and son duo who rented a property only to later claim it wasn’t suitable to be lived in unlawfully sub-let it to another woman, charging her double the rent in the process.
Now the pair, who submitted false invoices from tradespeople as evidence, has been ordered to pay almost $28,000 in repairs, unpaid rent, and exemplary damages.

They further claimed there was mould in the bathroom and sodden floorboards near a fireplace.
“Photographs were provided by the tenants of these areas. I could not see any mould in these photographs,” the tribunal adjudicator said.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/jewellery-business-owner-and-son-ordered-to-pay-27k-to-landlord-for-unpaid-rent-subletting-house/HTWHN74SIRHAPIXKR32CR7L6L4/

[donna]

Another disturbing event for a Landlord.....

Why is this not criminal damage? How is it any different to the ramraids of shops etc - is this considered criminal? Also, the bikers causing road chaos, damaging cars and threatening lives - is this criminal?

The police failure to turn up to the Landlord's property is evidence of NZ going to the dogs. National must get in and restore faith in the law and order of New Zealand.

Donna

[Wayne]

Where have you been? This sort of thing has been going on for a long time under any Govt - this isn't a Labour thing!
This is criminal damage and always has been. No one said that it wasn't - did they?

As for National restoring law and order - are you joking? All they can come up with is boot camps which are an old tried and failed National policy.

[Perry]

Why is this not criminal damage?

It's excluded under RTA provisions - that's why!