Website: The best of the Internet for investors
Over the past two years the New Zealand Property Magazine has reviewed most of the leading property related websites and here, Diana Clement brings you a summary of how to make the Internet work for you...
Thursday, March 1st 2007, 12:00AM
by The Landlord
Twenty-first century property investors have more information at their fingertips than any previous generations. Thanks to the Internet, it’s possible to do much of your due diligence on a property purchase without even leaving the comfort of your home or office.
Once the preserve of professionals only, vast swathes of data and information is available to anyone willing to do a bit of online sleuthing.
Statistics/information:
Infometrics Property
Infometrics Property is a goldmine for investors. It collates data from all sorts of sources such as Statistics New Zealand, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), Quotable Value (QV), and the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ). It costs AUD$30 for three months or AUD$85 for 12 months.
As well as statistics, Infometrics Property also provides articles from its economists, interpreting economic data such as the RBNZ monetary policy statements. Other subjects of importance to landlords on this website include: home ownership and ethnicity, or how the house price riddle has proved forecasters wrong.
It has to be said that much of the data on Infometrics Property is available free elsewhere. What you’re paying for is having the data presented in a consistent, digestible format.
Quotable Value
Data, data, data. QV’s website is a must for anyone who doesn’t know their market like the back of their hand.
With a few clicks of the mouse, QV allows you to find out:
· Records of property sales and previous capital values
· Information by address, valuation reference number, local authority or region
· Listings of properties by comparative characteristics, such as size, capital value, property category, sales dates, and more
· Floor area, construction type, property category, land area, capital value, local authority or regional council
· Demographic reports.
Terranet
Like QV, Terranet provides invaluable reports for property buyers. Some are free, other cost – mostly less than $10, which is small change if the data leads to a better purchase. The guts of Terranet are four databases containing:
1. Detailed valuation and sales data
2. An ownership register
3. Aerial imaging
4. Building consents.
By far the most popular reports are the sales and valuation reports. They give you a property’s rateable value and its sales history since 1995. These reports cost $2.50 each plus GST. If you’re concerned about that room tacked on the back of a property you can order a Building Consents Report for the property in question. Or if you want to extend a property you might find it useful to get a Building Consents Issued In A Street Report. Some of the free reports are mighty useful. For example you can get quick access to school enrolment zones information.
Real Estate Institute of New Zealand
This website from the real estate agents’ professional body has a variety of useful information such as:
· latest real estate news
· trends in the property market
· market facts graphs
· residential rent review statistics
· Massey University Property surveys
· AMP Home Affordability reports
· tips on buying or selling property.
Property Insight
This site offers a detailed hazard report on your property. It includes some free advice about how to minimise the impact of hazards.
RPNZReports
We haven’t yet reviewed this offshoot of an Australian website. It says it provides detailed property and suburb reports, free district profiles and more.
Whatpricemyhouse
Whatpricemyhouse provides free comparable house prices over the net. It involves you filling in a form and then (allegedly) receiving a reply within 48 hours via email. Our reply didn’t come within the 48 hours.
Government websites:
Department of Building and Housing (Tenancy Services)
This website aims to offer useful advice and information for landlords and tenants who rent their homes. It has sections about building, weather tightness, tenancy, and information, trends and data in New Zealand’s building and housing environment.
Perhaps the best used section is the tenancy section, which includes downloads and useful information such as:
· Market rental prices, recorded from bonds
· Rules and regulations
· A landlord’s introduction to the law
· Details of the Residential Tenancies Act in plain English
· Mediation and Tenancy Tribunal information
· Useful question and answer page
· Links to organisations of use to landlords
· Details of upcoming landlord education seminars.
Statistics New Zealand
This website is a veritable mine of information about New Zealand and its people. Investors could spend many hours searching this website. For example, the New Zealand Property Magazine searched the term: “Huntly” and found detailed statistics on population, age profile, education, ethnic groups, income, employment, families, households and businesses. For example we found that the median income at the 2001 Census was $13,400 compared to $18,500 – perhaps indicating that paying the rent might be a problem, the population was over 40% Maori, compared with a New Zealand average of less than 20%, and the unemployment rate was 17.1%, compared to 7.5% for the whole of New Zealand, and 32.7% were one parent families compared with 18.9% nationwide.
It’s also possible to find out the number of dwellings, dwelling type, percentage of owner occupiers and so forth for an urban area such as Huntly. You can find out data reporting from courts such as burglaries, drug offences, and even offences under the Dog Control Act. There are also population projections – useful indeed for a property investor. Much of the information is free. But from time to time you will need to pay for this – such as the area unit population projections.
Housing New Zealand
Housing New Zealand’s website has some useful research on it. There is also a basic introduction to the guaranteed rent through home leasing scheme where the HNZC manages rental properties on behalf of landlords.
Reserve Bank NZ
The RBNZ’s website, like that of Statistics New Zealand, is a behemoth of data and information. For those investors who follow the economy closely, it’s an absolute must. It has data on everything from the CPI inflation calculator, interest rates, recent monetary policy statements, and variable first mortgage interest rates – right back to 1964, and building permit issues to 1994. Investors might also find the current financial stability reports interesting as well as the key graphs. Search the words “property investment” and a number of interesting links come up. One, dating back to 1998, was a speech by the then governor of the Reserve Bank, Don Brash, about why the reserve bank wasn’t against property investment.
Sorted
This website from the retirement commissioner is really aimed at those people who need to learn the basics of managing their money. There are however, some useful calculators such as the Net Worth calculator, Goals Planner, Budget, and the Money Personality Profiler.
Land Information New Zealand
The LINZ website contains a series of records that can be ordered online. They include survey plans, records of property ownership such as freehold title, crown grants and so on. While the records can be ordered and paid for online, the delivery is via fax or post.
Property buying/letting websites:
Realestate
The Real Estate Institute’s Realestate.co.nz claims to feature over 75,000 properties. It is certainly a huge, easy-to-search database.
Open2View, Allrealestate, and others belonging to all of the leading real estate agencies as well as private sales websites such as homesell and GoGeckoThe reality is that it’s probably worth checking out a number of them.
It should be said that when it comes to sales, the really best deals will often be gone before the property ever hits a website or is even photographed. On the rental side, however, a growing band of Generation Y tenants in particular only look online and it makes a whole lot of sense to list properties to rent there if the traditional avenues aren’t bringing in tenants quick enough or of a suitable calibre.
Other useful rental sites include:
· NZflatmates
· Homelet
· Finda
· Apartments
Forums/news:
It’s important for investors to keep up with the news. Of course we think the New Zealand Property Magazine is the best source. But from a day-to-day point of view it’s possible to keep up with property-related news on a number of websites such as:
· Landlords
· Propertytalk
Both of these websites also have forums where you can exchange views with thousands of other investors on subjects as diverse as the legality of smoke-free buildings to automated car parking systems.
Tenant checking:
We all have to do it. Check out prospective tenants, and sometimes chase errant tenants for money.
BaycorpAdvantage
This site allows property investors to do instant online credit checks, motor vehicle licence plate and other useful checks on potential tenants. Baycorp’s service is aimed at businesses that offer credit, rather than property investors and it can take a bit of poking about to figure out what’s of use for you. If you’re a member of a local property investors’ association then the annual membership is waived and you just pay for individual services, such as a credit check for $5.67.
Tenancy Information New Zealand
TINZ is a huge database of information about tenants entered by landlords and property managers. As well as general references, tenancy tribunal judgements and 10 day notices can be recorded in the system. Anyone who is a member can then search the database from their Internet browser and make his or her own mind up from the picture that emerges about a prospective tenant. As the database grows it becomes increasingly useful for tenants. The site also has a regular newsletter with landlord tips.
Mortgage and banking information:
So you want to know where you can get the best rate for an 80% mortgage on a $200,000 property with a line of credit? You could visit each individual bank’s website but that would leave out the dozens of non-bank lenders, or you could take a look at one of the websites that collate such information. They include:
· Depositrates
· Interest
· Cannex
Council websites:
Local councils’ websites can be a mine of information. Each website is different. The New Zealand Property Magazine reviewed the Auckland City Council’s website as an example. On the site: Aucklandcity.govt.nz, you can find out if there’s a brothel within 100 metres of a property you want to buy, or a mortuary license has been granted next door. The site contains a long list of useful services such as:
· Ordering LIMs online for electronic delivery or post in hard copy
· Rubbish and recycling bin requests
· Ordering property files by CD
· Valuation objections
· Building consents reports
· DIY project information ranging from swimming and spa pools, alterations and additions, garages and carports, earthworks and excavations, decks and paving, and fences
· Interactive working from home guide – letting you know what uses are permitted at the address you wish to buy
· Heritage information
· Rates estimator.
As well as local territorial authorities, regional councils such as the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council have extensive websites: www.hbrc.govt.nz. On that site you can find out all manner of information ranging from council plans and strategies to soil maps, flood protection, consents, leasehold land and much more.
Building:
ConsumerBuild
If you’re starting out on your first building project or just want to move a wall, but don’t know how to deal with architects and builders, then ConsumerBuild.org.nz is a good first reference.
This idiot’s guide to building, renovating and maintaining houses is a joint venture between the Department of Building and Housing and Consumers’ Institute and it bills itself as “NZ’s independent resource for building, renovating, and maintaining homes”. In it, you’ll find information about the:
· Building Act
· Buying a house
· Buying a section
· Construction phase
· Dealing with trades people
· Design and architects
· Do-it-yourself
· Leaky buildings
· Legal issues
· Maintenance and repairs
· Materials and features
· Moving a house
· Project management
· Renovations and alterations
Nailed
Like ConsumerBuild, this website has lots of useful information about building and renovating. It also has a useful newsletter and an “Ask Greg” the building agony aunt section.
Others:
There are many more websites of use to property investors:
· Chranz (Centre for Housing Research, Aotearoa New Zealand)
· Wises (online street maps)
· Tumonz (mapping)
· ERO (schools reports)
· Hybridgroup(property cycle commentary)
· Richmastery (news, information, blogs)
· NZPIF (New Zealand Property Investors Federation)
· Propertynz (Property Council of New Zealand).
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