Rentvesting: How Smarter Kiwi’s are Retiring

Are you a rentvester? Do you even know what rentvesting is? In short, it could be the new Kiwi dream.

Rentvesting is buying a house and renting it out often to secure a place for retirement

Rentvesting is essentially the clever Kiwi’s way of securing their own home in a location they love at today’s prices. House prices only get dearer and dearer so it is a great example of Kiwi ingenuity.

The mortgage to settle in is no longer the dream

In fact, it’s becoming pretty impractical to buy a home – especially for younger people. So what’s the solution for this?Long-term renting.

The sound of that makes a lot of people shudder. I mean, it’s only been a recent change and it’s one most people are unsettled about. But let’s step back and think about it.

Why do we want to invest in a property and settle there? For most people, the city is the place to be – it’s where the money is and where the fun is. But is it where you’ll always want to be? Would you like to raise kids in the heart of the city? Or would you like to retire in the city? Is it safe?

Rentvest for retirement

Mark Collins, CEO of Mike Pero Mortgages, says this is not about property investment for capital gain, which could be subject to a capital gains tax. Rather, it’s about buying a property for retirement, or for use as a family holiday home.

“Buying outside the big cities means you are vulnerable to regional changes. Up until about two years ago, when the halo effect started happening in towns outside of Auckland, some of the regions were going backwards when you adjusted for inflation – up to 13 per cent in some cases. The yields, around three to four per cent, are also not great. If you were simply looking for capital gain, you would need to assess such a property investment against all other investment types,” he told Stuff.co.nz.