NELSON PROPERTY INVESTORS ASSOCIATION
OCTOBER 2004 NEWSLETTER
PO Box 198 Nelson [email protected]
Our next meeting is being held at the Ocean Lodge Muritai St Thursday 14 October. The meeting starts at 7.30pm with the usual optional meal at 6pm. We are flying in Marc and Donna who run www.propertytalk.co.nz. to talk to us. They have created a resource center to link landlords. I firmly believe that this is the way of the future. No longer can we in Nelson, living in a small isolated city, be marginalized and left out in the dark about trends and new property developments. Their site harnesses the collective intelligence of landlords both in New Zealand and around the world. By sharing our knowledge with each other we can advance our common cause by being be more informed. No longer can property scam merchants arrive in town and take advantage of gullible investors. Come and hear how you can join the throng on line and perhaps help someone with your knowledge. This site is not just about altruistic endeavors. Many business people have gained a significant amount of new business from it also.
THE MARKET
The trends mentioned in our last newsletter are continuing to bite deeper into the market. Prospective tenants are becoming very difficult looking at all the options available to them. A number of appointments are being made then not kept which is a pet hate of mine. It appears that the malaise normally seen in the selling side of the real estate business has crept into the rental market. In many cases prospects seem to be merely kicking the tires coming to look at houses or ringing to ask what a house looks like without really being serious and motivated about renting them.
DEFAULTS ON THE RISE
The number of tenants getting into trouble with rent arrears appears to be increasing at the moment.
One cause is the long cold winter and the size of some tenants power bills. WINZ will pay some tenants power bills for them if they get into trouble with budgeting. I have at least two tenants who WINZ have kindly assisted them with this service. With the number of vacancies and the new pool of inexperienced landlords who do not check out the history of tenancy applications, the incidence of abandoned flats is increasing again. If your tenant is behind with their rent it does pay to go knocking on the door to “talk” to them. An abandoned property is defined as the rent is in arrears and the tenant has left.
The RTA is not really clear about what an abandonment is. Clues are, no movement on the power meter indicating the fridge is not on or the power has been cut off, uncollected mail in the letter box, a strange stillness about the place. When you have good grounds to suspect an abandonment you need to look inside the flat. The landlord is permitted to enter the premises without notice in any case of emergency. It could be that the tenant has died in the flat so that surely must be an emergency. Further inside clues are, no food, clothes all gone, furniture missing. The RTA specifies that you can claim three weeks rent from the day a property has been abandoned so it is necessary to create some sort of evidence to justify this discovery. Digital photos with date stamps on them are a valuable tool to assist this.
REDIRECTION OF RENTS BY WINZ
The saga continues and something seems to be happening at WINZ with this service. I have noticed recently that when a case manager confirms this facility has been approved it can take as long as four weeks to start up. Because of this it is necessary when appearing in mediation to specify the debt not just to the end of the current week as we do normally but to specify the debt to the end of another three or four weeks time. If anyone knows why WINZ is now taking so long to start up the redirections please drop me a line.
THE MONTHS FUNNY STORY
I got an urgent call from a tenant asking me to attend to a burst pipe in a flat. I shot across town in my car, pounded across the lawn down the hallway and into the flat. A scene of devastation like nothing I have ever experienced met my eyes. Two wet tenants (one holding a baby) stood looking up at the 3m high ceiling. A waterfall like torrent of water was gushing down onto a sodden pile of ceiling material on the floor. Throwing my hands into the air like Moses parting the sea I announced in a loud voice “Why did you not turn the water off at the street?” “It is not our job” the little wet lady
holding the baby, said to me.
This newsletter has been sponsored by SBS. Proud to be a Building Society not a Registered Bank
4 U 2 can txt It is not 2 L8 2 learn
I am sure most of you older landlords are like me and for years have not bothered to use the mobile text service. Who needs to save a few cents, and after all, the time it takes to make a message you could have done something more useful with your time. But ha ha I have discovered something else just perfect for landlords. Most of you would have become very frustrated with all those tenants that never answer their phone and never have enough money on the prepaid phones to read their messages. Well I have several prewritten messages in my draft box on my mobile. “missed your rent Please call” “ I propose showing a prospective tenant through at xx pm tomorrow” “did not get all of your rent” “how is the clean up going” “See you in court” Now I do not need to slowly ping out a new message all the time. I just bring up the selected message and zap all of the tenants that have missed their rent that day with the same message. This is far faster than ringing them all individually. Now for the more computer literate you can actually send the txt messages from your computer. The only down side to this service is you need two different sites. One to send to Vodaphone 021 and another site to send to Telecom 027 mobiles.
I have found that sending out a message about rent or cleaning is far less confrontational than a phone call. It saves having to listen to a pack of lies about paying double next week after I have buried my mother for the third time this year. For some reason the tenants have really taken to proposals to text them with prior warnings about showing prospective tenants through. They do not get disturbed at work or class and yet can feel that you are making a genuine effort to be courteous and keep them informed. The big thing I miss is not being able to print messages out from the mobile for later use as evidence in court or what ever. Do any of you know how I can do this please?
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS
Thanks all those members who have paid their subs so early this year. This year’s crop of renewing and new members looks to be another bumper harvest. Forgive me but I have stopped the KPI for anyone that has not paid. This has produced a small flurry of late payments. If you want a free annual KPI subscription then pay us and we will arrange for you to get one. A few members have asked about getting the NZ Property Investor magazine. We are monitoring the situation and a few key members are now getting both magazines. Our responsibility is to our own members. What you want is what we do. Non members have no say in our decision.
OUR NEW TREASURER
We now have a new treasurer Gail Dawson to look after your cheques that you send in.
Thanks to all those of you that volunteered to do this task. I am sure many other organisations would envy our ability to come up with so many volunteers. It sure is great to be in an organisation that is light on protocol but strong on focus of what we do. Having a very small team of skilled people to keep the organisation running is an efficient way to operate. Our finances are in good shape due to good membership, controlled prudent spending, and good support from advertisers and sponsors. Incidentally the advertiser in our last newsletter Mr Rentals indicated that he had a good response last month. If your market is property investors then advertising in our newsletter is a very cost effective way to target your message.
Commentaries on Falling Rents
Extract from the BNZ weekly newsletter by
Tony Alexander
You’ll undoubtedly have noticed that in the newspapers discussion has turned for the moment away from forecast of big property price falls toward the rental market and static to falling rents. Awareness is clearly growing of the worsening over-supply of rental accommodation and fairly soon we will be seeing some of the over-optimistic under-capitalised rental property buyers placing their properties on the market to stop their cash outflows. For the past year to 15 months we have been suggesting professional property investors take advantage of the strong market with scrambling buyers at auctions to flick off their useless properties which have proved hard to rent in the past or are coming up for expensive maintenance. Then once things turn the other way use the freed up cash to buy some of the quality stock, which will hit the market. We know there are some people who have liquidated their poor assets. But it’s too early to start buying again. Once the massive supply of new dwellings hits the market early next year then it would be a good idea to start sniffing around for the bargains – that should be the story of 2005-06. The best time to buy may be 18 months or so from now when high interest rates have been in place for so long that real stop-loss selling kicks in.
Disclaimer. Anyone stupid enough to act on advice or comments in this newsletter without thinking for themselves deserves to suffer the consequences.
OCTOBER 2004 NEWSLETTER
PO Box 198 Nelson [email protected]
Our next meeting is being held at the Ocean Lodge Muritai St Thursday 14 October. The meeting starts at 7.30pm with the usual optional meal at 6pm. We are flying in Marc and Donna who run www.propertytalk.co.nz. to talk to us. They have created a resource center to link landlords. I firmly believe that this is the way of the future. No longer can we in Nelson, living in a small isolated city, be marginalized and left out in the dark about trends and new property developments. Their site harnesses the collective intelligence of landlords both in New Zealand and around the world. By sharing our knowledge with each other we can advance our common cause by being be more informed. No longer can property scam merchants arrive in town and take advantage of gullible investors. Come and hear how you can join the throng on line and perhaps help someone with your knowledge. This site is not just about altruistic endeavors. Many business people have gained a significant amount of new business from it also.
THE MARKET
The trends mentioned in our last newsletter are continuing to bite deeper into the market. Prospective tenants are becoming very difficult looking at all the options available to them. A number of appointments are being made then not kept which is a pet hate of mine. It appears that the malaise normally seen in the selling side of the real estate business has crept into the rental market. In many cases prospects seem to be merely kicking the tires coming to look at houses or ringing to ask what a house looks like without really being serious and motivated about renting them.
DEFAULTS ON THE RISE
The number of tenants getting into trouble with rent arrears appears to be increasing at the moment.
One cause is the long cold winter and the size of some tenants power bills. WINZ will pay some tenants power bills for them if they get into trouble with budgeting. I have at least two tenants who WINZ have kindly assisted them with this service. With the number of vacancies and the new pool of inexperienced landlords who do not check out the history of tenancy applications, the incidence of abandoned flats is increasing again. If your tenant is behind with their rent it does pay to go knocking on the door to “talk” to them. An abandoned property is defined as the rent is in arrears and the tenant has left.
The RTA is not really clear about what an abandonment is. Clues are, no movement on the power meter indicating the fridge is not on or the power has been cut off, uncollected mail in the letter box, a strange stillness about the place. When you have good grounds to suspect an abandonment you need to look inside the flat. The landlord is permitted to enter the premises without notice in any case of emergency. It could be that the tenant has died in the flat so that surely must be an emergency. Further inside clues are, no food, clothes all gone, furniture missing. The RTA specifies that you can claim three weeks rent from the day a property has been abandoned so it is necessary to create some sort of evidence to justify this discovery. Digital photos with date stamps on them are a valuable tool to assist this.
REDIRECTION OF RENTS BY WINZ
The saga continues and something seems to be happening at WINZ with this service. I have noticed recently that when a case manager confirms this facility has been approved it can take as long as four weeks to start up. Because of this it is necessary when appearing in mediation to specify the debt not just to the end of the current week as we do normally but to specify the debt to the end of another three or four weeks time. If anyone knows why WINZ is now taking so long to start up the redirections please drop me a line.
THE MONTHS FUNNY STORY
I got an urgent call from a tenant asking me to attend to a burst pipe in a flat. I shot across town in my car, pounded across the lawn down the hallway and into the flat. A scene of devastation like nothing I have ever experienced met my eyes. Two wet tenants (one holding a baby) stood looking up at the 3m high ceiling. A waterfall like torrent of water was gushing down onto a sodden pile of ceiling material on the floor. Throwing my hands into the air like Moses parting the sea I announced in a loud voice “Why did you not turn the water off at the street?” “It is not our job” the little wet lady
holding the baby, said to me.
This newsletter has been sponsored by SBS. Proud to be a Building Society not a Registered Bank
4 U 2 can txt It is not 2 L8 2 learn
I am sure most of you older landlords are like me and for years have not bothered to use the mobile text service. Who needs to save a few cents, and after all, the time it takes to make a message you could have done something more useful with your time. But ha ha I have discovered something else just perfect for landlords. Most of you would have become very frustrated with all those tenants that never answer their phone and never have enough money on the prepaid phones to read their messages. Well I have several prewritten messages in my draft box on my mobile. “missed your rent Please call” “ I propose showing a prospective tenant through at xx pm tomorrow” “did not get all of your rent” “how is the clean up going” “See you in court” Now I do not need to slowly ping out a new message all the time. I just bring up the selected message and zap all of the tenants that have missed their rent that day with the same message. This is far faster than ringing them all individually. Now for the more computer literate you can actually send the txt messages from your computer. The only down side to this service is you need two different sites. One to send to Vodaphone 021 and another site to send to Telecom 027 mobiles.
I have found that sending out a message about rent or cleaning is far less confrontational than a phone call. It saves having to listen to a pack of lies about paying double next week after I have buried my mother for the third time this year. For some reason the tenants have really taken to proposals to text them with prior warnings about showing prospective tenants through. They do not get disturbed at work or class and yet can feel that you are making a genuine effort to be courteous and keep them informed. The big thing I miss is not being able to print messages out from the mobile for later use as evidence in court or what ever. Do any of you know how I can do this please?
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS
Thanks all those members who have paid their subs so early this year. This year’s crop of renewing and new members looks to be another bumper harvest. Forgive me but I have stopped the KPI for anyone that has not paid. This has produced a small flurry of late payments. If you want a free annual KPI subscription then pay us and we will arrange for you to get one. A few members have asked about getting the NZ Property Investor magazine. We are monitoring the situation and a few key members are now getting both magazines. Our responsibility is to our own members. What you want is what we do. Non members have no say in our decision.
OUR NEW TREASURER
We now have a new treasurer Gail Dawson to look after your cheques that you send in.
Thanks to all those of you that volunteered to do this task. I am sure many other organisations would envy our ability to come up with so many volunteers. It sure is great to be in an organisation that is light on protocol but strong on focus of what we do. Having a very small team of skilled people to keep the organisation running is an efficient way to operate. Our finances are in good shape due to good membership, controlled prudent spending, and good support from advertisers and sponsors. Incidentally the advertiser in our last newsletter Mr Rentals indicated that he had a good response last month. If your market is property investors then advertising in our newsletter is a very cost effective way to target your message.
Commentaries on Falling Rents
Extract from the BNZ weekly newsletter by
Tony Alexander
You’ll undoubtedly have noticed that in the newspapers discussion has turned for the moment away from forecast of big property price falls toward the rental market and static to falling rents. Awareness is clearly growing of the worsening over-supply of rental accommodation and fairly soon we will be seeing some of the over-optimistic under-capitalised rental property buyers placing their properties on the market to stop their cash outflows. For the past year to 15 months we have been suggesting professional property investors take advantage of the strong market with scrambling buyers at auctions to flick off their useless properties which have proved hard to rent in the past or are coming up for expensive maintenance. Then once things turn the other way use the freed up cash to buy some of the quality stock, which will hit the market. We know there are some people who have liquidated their poor assets. But it’s too early to start buying again. Once the massive supply of new dwellings hits the market early next year then it would be a good idea to start sniffing around for the bargains – that should be the story of 2005-06. The best time to buy may be 18 months or so from now when high interest rates have been in place for so long that real stop-loss selling kicks in.
Disclaimer. Anyone stupid enough to act on advice or comments in this newsletter without thinking for themselves deserves to suffer the consequences.