By Matt Ball – PR & Advocacy Manager
We’re half-way through the year, 170 days ‘til Christmas, and two days to go before the next Official Cash Rate announcement. As Interest.co.nz says, “the general belief is that the decision in the coming week will be a ‘hold’, [but] this is definitely the most uncertain lead-in to an OCR review since the current easing cycle started last year.” The big question is will be there any more cuts this cycle?
A little politics
In case you missed it last week, NZ First MP Tanya Unkovitch quit so she can “better serve mankind” in the private sector, leading some to question aspects of our MMP voting system. She will be replaced by David Wilson from Northland, who was interviewed on Q+A yesterday. He’s got an impressive CV, and people who know him tell me should be a pretty decent MP. It’ll be interesting to see how he gets on; Parliament is a funny place.
A wee request for help
One of the key roles of NZPIF is to further the education and skills of property investors. One of the ways we do this is through our RentSkills course, which many members have completed.
We’d like to get RentSkills out to a wider audience, and to do that we’ll have to go through the NZQA accreditation process and either become an education provider, or partner with an existing provider.
We’re looking for a member or supporter who has the skills to assist with NZQA approval, accreditation and registration to help us. If you have this experience and would be willing to help, please contact Vice President Peter Lewis.
Housing market flat, but mortgage lending still up
The housing market is in the doldrums, but houses are still being bought & sold and mortgage lending is on the up.
The RBNZ figures for May (released at the end of June) show total new mortgage lending was $8.583 billion, the highest since July 2021. The total was up 13% on April and nearly a quarter up on the same time last year.
All lender groups borrowed more, but as the RB puts it, First Home Buyers’ share of new lending fell to 19.1% in May, while Investors’ share rose to 21.3%. Regular readers will know the RB figures skew the Investor share number. While FHBs only ever take out a new mortgage, Investors also change lenders and take out top-ups – both of which are counted as ‘new’ lending.
Take these numbers out and Investors took out roughly $924 million in loans on new house purchases, compared to $1.64bn for FHBs. So, First Home Buyers are still doing well in this market, which is good to see.
Taking matters up with the Tenancy Tribunal
We met with the Tenancy Tribunal in June, as part of our ongoing work to share information with them, improve our mutual understanding of each other’s issues, and to raise cases with them on behalf of investors.
One such case is covered in this article about an investor who went to the Tribunal seeking compensation for the damage a tenant caused through meth contamination. The landlord’s claim was denied.
The landlord was left worse off, even though, as the Adjudicator stated in their ruling, “the landlord should be returned to the position they would have been in had the tenant not breached their obligations, and should not be better or worse off.”
The adjudicator used IRD depreciation tables to determine the residual value of the damaged assets, which then guided their ruling. However, the landlord had to replace everything in the flat including many items with considerable useful life left in them, leaving the landlord (considerably) out of pocket.
The Principal Adjudicator’s response
I wrote to the Principal Adjudicator Brett Carter and raised the case with him. His reply in full: “As you foreshadow, because adjudicators are independent judicial officers, I can’t comment on a particular case or the approach that other adjudicators should take when calculating remedies. That’s something that only a higher court on appeal can do, or Parliament could amend the RTA to provide that guidance. But the issue is an interesting one, and I will discuss this with my team as part of our ongoing training.”
Now, you might think this doesn’t amount to much. As he notes, he can’t interfere in the case, there are legal channels for that. But it is an issue that he’ll raise with his team. It will be discussed, and perhaps the approach will change in future. Or not. Regardless, we have a channel through which we can raise matters and our concerns are being taken seriously. I think that’s a win.
Half an hour with Rodney Hide
Some of you will remember Rodney Hide, former ACT MP, ACT Leader and Dancing with the Stars contestant. Rodney invited me on his Reality Check Radio show a while back and we did the interview last week. You can watch here.
Rodney and I are old friends and colleagues, so there’s a bit of ‘two old blokes going on about the good old days of politics’ at the start. However, once you get past that we get onto property investment, the role of NZPIF and the issues we all face in our sector.
That’s it for this week. If you enjoy Media Links, please pass it on and encourage friends and family to sign up: https://nzpif.co.nz/#mailinglist.
As always, send questions and feedback to me at [email protected]. It’s great to hear from the front lines 🙂
Matt Ball
NZPIF PR & Advocacy Manager