Hi there everyone. Attached is your latest newsletter. Pasted below for those members whose security system strips off all attachments is another copy of the same newsletter.
Do not forget to circle Thursday night 18th March.
We are bringing Gez Johns down from Auckland to speak.
Glenn
NELSON PROPERTY INVESTORS ASSOCIATION
MARCH 2004 NEWSLETTER
PO Box 198 Nelson. [email protected]
Our next meeting is being held at the Ocean Lodge Muritai St Thursday 18 March. The meeting starts at 7.30pm with the usual optional meal at 6pm. Gez Johns Editor of the Kiwi Property Investor magazine is speaking. The KPI is supplied to all of our financial members at no extra cost. Gez is located in Auckland but covers the whole country with his magazine. If you want to know what is happening in our business around the country and what the future holds then you need to listen to this man. Gez has taken a good magazine and transformed it into a top selling easy to read source of information about the market.
RSVP to Glenn for the meal please
THE LAST MEETING
As usual our last meeting held in November when Marc Alexander MP United Future from Christchurch spoke to us on landlord’s rights, was packed out again. Marc and the United Future party have taken up our cause following some well-published cases in Christchurch re bad tenants trashing rentals. Any politician that is prepared to champion our cause has to be applauded. Thank you Marc. Keep up the good work.
THE MARKET
Rentals were a bit soft for November and December especially for the larger properties but from mid January it has been full on for any type of property. Many of the high risk less desirable tenants with poor credit records are becoming desperate with a variety of social agencies pleading on their behalf to give them another chance. (more about that below). For any properties above $340 it is still hard going with very few enquiries. This is surprising when a comparison is made with the Christchurch market. The Press contains many adverts for larger homes in the $300 - $500 range. This is even more surprising when it is considered that in the middle to lower price ranges Nelson is more expensive than Christchurch. I suspect this is because we appear to have a higher occupancy rate than many other cities. In other words demand for housing remains very high. I have let two properties recently that have been empty for a few months awaiting buyers. The vendors have pretty well given up hoping for a top sale price. In one case the vendor had declined an offer that was 80% above his purchase of 12 months previously, he was hoping for an even better price. His agency has now expired and he has settled down for a long term holding, still hoping for a fairy godmother to fly in one day and offer him the same or better price than his first offer in November last year. In the other case a rent of $250 per week has been easily achieved for a property that the owner was hoping for $250,000 i.e. a rental return of 5%. The agents are suggesting a likely sale price of $200,000 or less; this equates to a return of 7%. At these prices it does not take too many clever calculations to figure that continuing to remain in the residential rental business is not a bad idea.
RENTS FROM WINZ
Things are settling down a bit now and some landlords are achieving some degrees of success. WINZ are agreeing fairly readily to pay the rents directly to private landlords from the start of the tenancy where the tenant is being referred by the various Mental Health and Mental Disability Support Services. Due to “self declared” poor communications between the various health workers I have found that not all of these staff are up to full speed in advocating for their clients to get the service. You need to always quote Social Security Act Section 82 (3) “Good Cause” when asking for this facility. Just in case some of you are wondering why an ill person would qualify. You might not be aware the court bailiff is not permitted to serve documents in a hospital. It is not uncommon in Nelson for tenants leaving their tenancies in a hurry to end up back in the Acute Mental Health unit. In a much more limited number of cases and often with a bit of a fight it is possible to get WINZ to agree to providing the service for applicants who have extremely poor credit records. Surprising as it might seem I have only had one genuine request for this payment through the new scheme as announced by the Minister at the NZPIF conference. This is the scheme where by Tenancy Services send out information with the mediation notices encouraging tenants to contact WINZ and get this form of assistance.
In my case the tenant was very keen to have her rents paid by WINZ. A Family Start support worker attended the mediation and fully supported the proposal. I got the mediators order written specifying that WINZ were to pay the rents directly
This newsletter has been sponsored by SBS. Proud to be a Building Society not a Registered Bank
This is a condition of the scheme as introduced by the Minister. Well firstly the suburban branch of WINZ claimed that they could not provide the service because they did not have the correct form (V19), this was quickly gazumped by offering to collect a form for them from the Nelson branch front desk where they keep the forms The tenant told me her case manager after seeing the mediators order rang Family Start presumably to check if there was undue pressure by me to have this start up. Well after much more delay than normal it eventually started up. It all took a bit of time and compassionate effort. However this was more than compensated for after hearing the heartfelt thanks of the tenant for maintaining the roof over her four young children’s heads. The warm fuzzies I experienced will remain with me for some time. It was a worth the effort.
If any of you have had similar problems with WINZ trying to pervert the directions of their Minister and the Act that they operate under please share this with the rest of us.
SUNDRY NOTICES
Due to unavoidable delays in holding our first meeting for the year this next meeting will be the last for the 2003-2004 year. Our next meeting will be to elect new officials. We are always keen to have input by way of ideas, questions, or comments. Our annual ideas meeting will be held soon to make suggestions on our program for the year ahead. Give Glenn a ring to be included in this meet.
Magazines. The NPIA executive is keen to meet the desires of our members. If anyone would prefer to receive the “alternative” Property magazine rather than KPI this can be accommodated. Please indicate this on your renewal form / tax invoice for 2004-2005.
Darcy and Glenn are heading off for a NZPIF communication meeting in Wellington on 21 March, and Glenn is off for a KPI meet in Auckland on the 6 March.
The NZPIF annual conference is being held this year in Dunedin. Dates set are 17-19 September 2004.
Members with open fires can now get a 50% subsidy from the NCC. Do not forget they are being banned soon. Contact Katy Steele Ph: 546 0339 for details on cheap heat pumps or flued gas heaters.
E-ALERTS ON BAD TENANTS
Those of you on our e mailing list will have noticed a trickle of alerts regarding bad tenants. We are still developing our systems for bad tenant reporting.
Please share your tribunal rulings with the rest of us by posting or scanning a copy of your tribunal judgements to Glenn.
We need to have the tribunal numbers before the information becomes public. The Tenancy Tribunal is a public court and all of its rulings are available for the public to look at. If you have photos of your bad tenants then email them through also.
Note you can only get these if you are on Email. If you have not been getting all of the recent E reports it is because we do not have your correct E address.
Please send off your address to [email protected]. A number of suppliers have suddenly found us and recognised the value of targeting Nelson property investors. We charge a donation of $30 to NPIA to send out your message to the 320 on the list. Remember there are neither wages nor free meals for NPIA officials. Everything goes back into supporting your cause.
WATER REMINDER
Remember the law has changed due to a District Court ruling. All new tenancy agreements must include a clause saying that the tenant is responsible to pay all water charges, if you want to collect. The old rules on only charging the excess water charges still apply to old agreements. Got that ??
Now this is really important when it is considered that the water charges are going through the roof to pay for the new $28,000,000 water treatment plant.
NOT COLLECTED YOUR TRIBUANL AWARDED DEBTS YET
The new scheme to disclose the addresses of tenancy tribunal debtors is working really well. It costs nothing and takes very little time to produce an address. I think it is almost too good to be true. We have the NZ Property Investors Federation to thank for this. This is what your $40 per head fee funds.
We will never run out of things to lobby the government over. By being a financial member of you local association you can change the law and make operating your rental business safer and more profitable. The next battle is a complete revision of the RTA. The PIF is asking for ideas to include in our submissions. Just think about it. The RTA needs faster and fairer resolution to problems of noise and violence. We need to address the issue of tenants insurance. Bonds of four weeks are tiny when compared to many countries, some of which permit bonds of several months rent. Parking of tenant’s cars can be a nightmare with some blocks of flats, yet the RTA is silent on these issues. Who would have thought when the RTA was written that tenants might have several vehicles and boats? If you have any ideas put them to paper and the NZPIF may be able to help.
Do not forget to circle Thursday night 18th March.
We are bringing Gez Johns down from Auckland to speak.
Glenn
NELSON PROPERTY INVESTORS ASSOCIATION
MARCH 2004 NEWSLETTER
PO Box 198 Nelson. [email protected]
Our next meeting is being held at the Ocean Lodge Muritai St Thursday 18 March. The meeting starts at 7.30pm with the usual optional meal at 6pm. Gez Johns Editor of the Kiwi Property Investor magazine is speaking. The KPI is supplied to all of our financial members at no extra cost. Gez is located in Auckland but covers the whole country with his magazine. If you want to know what is happening in our business around the country and what the future holds then you need to listen to this man. Gez has taken a good magazine and transformed it into a top selling easy to read source of information about the market.
RSVP to Glenn for the meal please
THE LAST MEETING
As usual our last meeting held in November when Marc Alexander MP United Future from Christchurch spoke to us on landlord’s rights, was packed out again. Marc and the United Future party have taken up our cause following some well-published cases in Christchurch re bad tenants trashing rentals. Any politician that is prepared to champion our cause has to be applauded. Thank you Marc. Keep up the good work.
THE MARKET
Rentals were a bit soft for November and December especially for the larger properties but from mid January it has been full on for any type of property. Many of the high risk less desirable tenants with poor credit records are becoming desperate with a variety of social agencies pleading on their behalf to give them another chance. (more about that below). For any properties above $340 it is still hard going with very few enquiries. This is surprising when a comparison is made with the Christchurch market. The Press contains many adverts for larger homes in the $300 - $500 range. This is even more surprising when it is considered that in the middle to lower price ranges Nelson is more expensive than Christchurch. I suspect this is because we appear to have a higher occupancy rate than many other cities. In other words demand for housing remains very high. I have let two properties recently that have been empty for a few months awaiting buyers. The vendors have pretty well given up hoping for a top sale price. In one case the vendor had declined an offer that was 80% above his purchase of 12 months previously, he was hoping for an even better price. His agency has now expired and he has settled down for a long term holding, still hoping for a fairy godmother to fly in one day and offer him the same or better price than his first offer in November last year. In the other case a rent of $250 per week has been easily achieved for a property that the owner was hoping for $250,000 i.e. a rental return of 5%. The agents are suggesting a likely sale price of $200,000 or less; this equates to a return of 7%. At these prices it does not take too many clever calculations to figure that continuing to remain in the residential rental business is not a bad idea.
RENTS FROM WINZ
Things are settling down a bit now and some landlords are achieving some degrees of success. WINZ are agreeing fairly readily to pay the rents directly to private landlords from the start of the tenancy where the tenant is being referred by the various Mental Health and Mental Disability Support Services. Due to “self declared” poor communications between the various health workers I have found that not all of these staff are up to full speed in advocating for their clients to get the service. You need to always quote Social Security Act Section 82 (3) “Good Cause” when asking for this facility. Just in case some of you are wondering why an ill person would qualify. You might not be aware the court bailiff is not permitted to serve documents in a hospital. It is not uncommon in Nelson for tenants leaving their tenancies in a hurry to end up back in the Acute Mental Health unit. In a much more limited number of cases and often with a bit of a fight it is possible to get WINZ to agree to providing the service for applicants who have extremely poor credit records. Surprising as it might seem I have only had one genuine request for this payment through the new scheme as announced by the Minister at the NZPIF conference. This is the scheme where by Tenancy Services send out information with the mediation notices encouraging tenants to contact WINZ and get this form of assistance.
In my case the tenant was very keen to have her rents paid by WINZ. A Family Start support worker attended the mediation and fully supported the proposal. I got the mediators order written specifying that WINZ were to pay the rents directly
This newsletter has been sponsored by SBS. Proud to be a Building Society not a Registered Bank
This is a condition of the scheme as introduced by the Minister. Well firstly the suburban branch of WINZ claimed that they could not provide the service because they did not have the correct form (V19), this was quickly gazumped by offering to collect a form for them from the Nelson branch front desk where they keep the forms The tenant told me her case manager after seeing the mediators order rang Family Start presumably to check if there was undue pressure by me to have this start up. Well after much more delay than normal it eventually started up. It all took a bit of time and compassionate effort. However this was more than compensated for after hearing the heartfelt thanks of the tenant for maintaining the roof over her four young children’s heads. The warm fuzzies I experienced will remain with me for some time. It was a worth the effort.
If any of you have had similar problems with WINZ trying to pervert the directions of their Minister and the Act that they operate under please share this with the rest of us.
SUNDRY NOTICES
Due to unavoidable delays in holding our first meeting for the year this next meeting will be the last for the 2003-2004 year. Our next meeting will be to elect new officials. We are always keen to have input by way of ideas, questions, or comments. Our annual ideas meeting will be held soon to make suggestions on our program for the year ahead. Give Glenn a ring to be included in this meet.
Magazines. The NPIA executive is keen to meet the desires of our members. If anyone would prefer to receive the “alternative” Property magazine rather than KPI this can be accommodated. Please indicate this on your renewal form / tax invoice for 2004-2005.
Darcy and Glenn are heading off for a NZPIF communication meeting in Wellington on 21 March, and Glenn is off for a KPI meet in Auckland on the 6 March.
The NZPIF annual conference is being held this year in Dunedin. Dates set are 17-19 September 2004.
Members with open fires can now get a 50% subsidy from the NCC. Do not forget they are being banned soon. Contact Katy Steele Ph: 546 0339 for details on cheap heat pumps or flued gas heaters.
E-ALERTS ON BAD TENANTS
Those of you on our e mailing list will have noticed a trickle of alerts regarding bad tenants. We are still developing our systems for bad tenant reporting.
Please share your tribunal rulings with the rest of us by posting or scanning a copy of your tribunal judgements to Glenn.
We need to have the tribunal numbers before the information becomes public. The Tenancy Tribunal is a public court and all of its rulings are available for the public to look at. If you have photos of your bad tenants then email them through also.
Note you can only get these if you are on Email. If you have not been getting all of the recent E reports it is because we do not have your correct E address.
Please send off your address to [email protected]. A number of suppliers have suddenly found us and recognised the value of targeting Nelson property investors. We charge a donation of $30 to NPIA to send out your message to the 320 on the list. Remember there are neither wages nor free meals for NPIA officials. Everything goes back into supporting your cause.
WATER REMINDER
Remember the law has changed due to a District Court ruling. All new tenancy agreements must include a clause saying that the tenant is responsible to pay all water charges, if you want to collect. The old rules on only charging the excess water charges still apply to old agreements. Got that ??
Now this is really important when it is considered that the water charges are going through the roof to pay for the new $28,000,000 water treatment plant.
NOT COLLECTED YOUR TRIBUANL AWARDED DEBTS YET
The new scheme to disclose the addresses of tenancy tribunal debtors is working really well. It costs nothing and takes very little time to produce an address. I think it is almost too good to be true. We have the NZ Property Investors Federation to thank for this. This is what your $40 per head fee funds.
We will never run out of things to lobby the government over. By being a financial member of you local association you can change the law and make operating your rental business safer and more profitable. The next battle is a complete revision of the RTA. The PIF is asking for ideas to include in our submissions. Just think about it. The RTA needs faster and fairer resolution to problems of noise and violence. We need to address the issue of tenants insurance. Bonds of four weeks are tiny when compared to many countries, some of which permit bonds of several months rent. Parking of tenant’s cars can be a nightmare with some blocks of flats, yet the RTA is silent on these issues. Who would have thought when the RTA was written that tenants might have several vehicles and boats? If you have any ideas put them to paper and the NZPIF may be able to help.