House buying

[Laava]

Going to be interesting to see if the current market crash they are reportedly having in WA will head east and then to us?

[Voltaire]

Going to be interesting to see if the current market crash they are reportedly having in WA will head east and then to us?

Isn't that down to the areas reliance on minerals and China having built all the things they want at the moment?

I think its more likely that the Twit (ter) running the US will cause the next market downturn.

The NZX seems to be riding the coat tails of the Dow at the moment, clearly the markets like a good sabre rattle as a

distraction to excessive debt and the growing chasm between the haves and the have nots.

[Laava]

Isn't that down to the areas reliance on minerals and China having built all the things they want at the moment?

I think its more likely that the Twit (ter) running the US will cause the next market downturn.

The NZX seems to be riding the coat tails of the Dow at the moment, clearly the markets like a good sabre rattle as a

distraction to excessive debt and the growing chasm between the haves and the have nots.

Probably all of the above but as we all know, things are not always entirely predictable or foreseen...

[Mike.Gayner]

Going to be interesting to see if the current market crash they are reportedly having in WA will head east and then to us?

Hard to see how WA is anything like NZ. WA had a massive, astronomical housing boom driven by a desperate shortage of housing during the mining boom. The area had virtually nothing else going for it, so when the mining boom ended it was pretty obvious what was going to happen. None of those factors are at play in NZ.

I'm not saying we won't have a market crash. I'm just saying WA isn't a great example.

[Asher]

I'm currently looking at buying too for similar money.
One house that I'm looking at making an offer on tested positive for meth and they had to strip and clean the inside of the house. The report is in the LIM and it looks like they did a good job of cleaning the house and replacing alot of things but I'm not sure how it will affect the resale value.
What are people's views on buying a clean and renovated meth house?

[jasonu]

What are people's views on buying a clean and renovated meth house?

It will be like buying a vehicle that has had a hard prang and been repaired. The resale price will be less than comparable houses that have not been used as a lab and the buyers will be fewer. Don't pay too much for it and you'll be right.

[jim.cox]

What are people's views on buying a clean and renovated meth house?

Approach with caution

Depends on whether it was used as a Cookhouse, or just for smoking the shit. There are some pretty nasty chemicals involved in the former

The $7 chinese test kits aren't worth a pile poo and there are some unscrupulous types out there using them to drive down prices - make an offer subject to testing - get a shell company to do a couple of quick tests - hey pronto, surpise surprise there is now a problem. There is at least one owner of a testing company running this scam in Chch

[Akzle]

meth use is fucking irrelevant.

cooking is arse.

but fucked if their tests will tell you the difference. someone is making a fucken boatload of money off that shit.

[Asher]

The highest reading was in the main bedroom at 37μg/cm2, the recommended level is 0.5.
I don't know what sort of readings they would get in a cook house vs just smoked house but I feel like it's just someone smoking it in bed on a Sunday morning before a big day of cutting people's hands off.

[R650R]

I'm currently looking at buying too for similar money.
One house that I'm looking at making an offer on tested positive for meth and they had to strip and clean the inside of the house. The report is in the LIM and it looks like they did a good job of cleaning the house and replacing alot of things but I'm not sure how it will affect the resale value.
What are people's views on buying a clean and renovated meth house?

From my understanding and research it seems it only makes it onto the LIM if its been a lab and at a level that is unsafe to inhabit. May vary from council to council. but the only way they are going to know (at the council) is either via the police or the owner having to make so much renovation to clean that its at consent required level, eg if they replaced structural gib (more likely in newer homes).
Basically 40% of all rentals are contaminated so if its been rented chances are ist contaminated. Also testing results vary widely, most of lower level tests are agregatted, y put all the samples in one pot and give you a kinda average reading.
Anything that has had decent decontamination cleaning will have had detailed post clean testing. Your not going to pay 5-10k plus and and not have it checked again to see they did the clean properly.
Yeah there is prob some hit on value but only if your buyers are doing their due diligence properly, still many speculators paying silly money and not checking places over...

[HEsch]

Late to the party but have recently purchased first property so have jumped through all the hoops. Feel free to ask if you want any other info.

FWIW, I had 20% equity in cash (which I did not need gifts, loans, HS grant or KS funds to reach), and a realistic budget (ie I could have gone higher, but didn't). I made a list of must haves, nice to haves and definitely don't wants. I was flexible with most of those things but wanted to steer away from certain suburbs.
I did extensive research and picked the brains of various friends, flatmates and family members in my search process. Kicked myself for not buying 3-5 years ago when the same property would have been 50% of the cost, but that's hindsight, such a wonderful thing that it is.

My lawyer quoted about $1500 + disbursements + GST for their fee (LIM, etc were extra) and I think came in at about 1600-1700 all up. I had the standard 10-day building report, 15-day LIM and "solicitor's clause" which is a sort of get-out-of-jail card, they can pull the plug for you without a reason. My solicitor suggested a variation to the agent's standard meth clause, to ensure it wasn't accepted by default if the reading was within safe levels (ie, she wanted me to be able to pull out if there was a reading that was higher than nothing but still under the accepted safe level).
Building report and meth test were 500-750. I didn't have to get a valuation. Bank didn't charge me the loan app fee, I just never signed that piece of paper; due to the low-ish value of the loan they only offered me $750 towards lawyer's fees but it wasn't worth upping my loan just to get another few hundred out of them.
I applied for HomeStart grant (got it) and to withdraw Kiwisaver (total fund, except 1000) because I can't touch that again for many many years (I consider the house a retirement savings plan, of sorts). The KS application took one working day to be processed and accepted - I guess not that many people put offers in around Christmas/New years. It helps if you actually read the docs, as the Housing NZ lady told me, and actually supply all of the things they ask for (apparently very common to leave out most of the requested information).

I found a good agent by chance. He did a lot of leg work for me, though I was an easy buyer to deal with (knew what I wanted, was flexible, had a pre-approved loan, etc). I found it good to work with him as he gave me feedback on houses from speaking to the listing agents, or could tell me when a house had an offer in and it wasn't even worth looking at (I had limited time to look due to working in a different city to where I was buying). He also steered me away from certain addresses that I didn't realise fell into certain "problem" areas in town. We steered away from auctions because I wasn't in a hurry to buy and hadn't been looking long... Two weeks searching, one day open homing & put in an offer two days after that on the second house I viewed, which was accepted.

I paid a little more than asking but realistically it was a good buy compared to other houses on the market. I was in a "multi offer" situation which works a little like an auction... The seller has multiple offers put on the table and picks one, or none. They may not negotiate with any of the offers, and you don't know what the others are, so you put your best offer in at the start and cross your fingers.

One thing I found hugely helpful to understand was how to structure my loan. Get some good advice about this that suits your finances/specific situation.
1) Mum suggested to aim to pay back interest and principal, rather than just interest, to actively reduce the amount of the loan over time.
2) I am seriously dedicated to saving, and have an irregular second income stream (ie I can't rely on it but sometimes it's a nice 'extra', on top of my salary) so decided to have a portion on a Floating rate. DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU WILL NOT PAY IT BACK EARLY - you just spend more on the interest than if you 'fix' it. It is a great option if you will have extra cash that you can put towards the loan, because you don't get penalised for early/additional repayments.
3) You can always re-fix the floating portion if your situation changes ie you realise you won't be paying it back early.
4) Whenever I manage to throw extra at the floating portion, I keep my fortnightly repayments the same, to help pay it off even faster.
5) The rest I split between a one-year term and a four-year term. This helps buffer changes that may occur in interest rates ie not everything is due for re-financing at the same time, some parts might go up and others won't for a while, etc.
6) Always talk to your bank before making extra repayments on a fixed term loan - they will advise if any extra fees will apply, or if it is better to instead pay that amount back when refinancing. I discussed options for extra repayments with my bank before choosing how much I would put in each part, ie I can increase my regular repayment amount by up to $500/time but it has to be a permanent change not a one-off thing.
7) always work out what repayments would be if the interest rates double and make sure you can service that amount of repayment, not just the current amount. In the current lending market, we are not likely to see decreases in interest rates.
8) not sure how relevant this is in the NZ market, all the info I found was from the AU or US, but consider fortnightly repayments instead of monthly. There are 26 fortnights in a year, but only 12 months (12 x 2 is 24, not 26... So you essentially make two extra payments each year on a fortnightly schedule, meaning you pay your loan off faster overall). The faster you can (reasonably) pay your loan back, the less you will spend in interest. Even $1 extra per payment will shave months off the tail end of a 30-year loan. Interest is calculated daily so the fortnightly payments also save you (cents) each month.

Good luck!

[R650R]

The highest reading was in the main bedroom at 37μg/cm2, the recommended level is 0.5.
I don't know what sort of readings they would get in a cook house vs just smoked house but I feel like it's just someone smoking it in bed on a Sunday morning before a big day of cutting people's hands off.

If its bad there will be a noticeable smell, check out some of the test sites for info. A very bad place youll prob get a headache just standing inside viewing the place.....

[Swoop]

Even $1 extra per payment will shave months off the tail end of a 30-year loan. Interest is calculated daily so the fortnightly payments also save you (cents) each month.

You sound like a well structured and dedicated saver.
IF a person is a saver and not a "spend it now!!" person, look at an Orbit loan (ASB name for it, other banks will have similar).
This is essentially a huge cheque account overdraft. The advantage is that every last cent goes into it, so technically reducing the amount still owing. This makes the amount that is used to calculate your fortnightly repayment less = faster to pay off.
I swapped over from a reducing loan to this and it made a massive difference in getting the mortgage paid off. The bank wasn't keen on helping to move onto the Orbit, since they make less money from you...

[R650R]

Going to full on mancave/workshop the shed from the start. Dble garage clean slate design....
So painted/sealed workshop floors vs straight concrete, pros and cons?????

Also one thing I thought of changing in my current set up was to only have workbench space down entire one side of the garage and rest as free traffic zone and working areas.... opinions?

[russd7]

Going to full on mancave/workshop the shed from the start. Dble garage clean slate design....
So painted/sealed workshop floors vs straight concrete, pros and cons?????

Also one thing I thought of changing in my current set up was to only have workbench space down entire one side of the garage and rest as free traffic zone and working areas.... opinions?

definitely a thumbs up for painted or sealed floor workshop, we did that at work and it makes a huge difference in keeping it clean, as for workbench down all of one side, you lose a lot of wall space if you do that, my workbench in my garage is only about 1.8m and i built shelves for storing stuff that couldn't be hung on walls, shadow board for the tools, sloped shelf for my two main socket sets (1/4" drive and 1/2" drive) and big grinder and skilsaw, all else is on shadow board, so much easier