EWW: Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should...

I read a fascinating article on Stuff and it got me thinking...

Welcome to Emily Writes Weekly. I’m so happy to have you here with me. It has been a busy week with school going back and we have a wedding tomorrow which we’re all very excited about. Plus Rants in the Dark has been booked for Wanaka and Dunedin! Today, I wanted to talk about an article that kind of blew my mind…It’s about someone who bought five homes in five years. Caution: I’m going on a rant!

I am endlessly interested in people who hoard their wealth in housing. I find the way they think and act so fascinating - it’s so different to any reality that I know. Nobody I know does this, yet in the media it’s all I see.

I remember growing up in rentals and feeling no different about that than people who grew up in homes they owned.

Property investor just wasn’t a job then like it is now. My friends had homes - some more run down than others but we didn’t have the same enormous divide that we have now.

I’m 35 and I remember that renting held dignity when I was younger. Rental homes were treated like your own home.

And if someone owned multiple homes they were considered very rich. I mean, I didn’t know anyone who owned more than one home. Why would you need to own more than one home?

This year, I have watched friends lose their homes to rent increases. It’s happened one after the other. They all have children - and the impact is just so immense. They all paid enormous rent for homes that were cold and damp. Despite the state of the homes they couldn’t blu-tack a picture of their child’s painting over the spot of mould growing…Renting in 2021 denies people the chance to put down roots because it’s all about money. If there’s a chance to make more, tenants are kicked to the curb.

Who would want to rent to a family? They might…act like a family in your rental home! They might get behind in their rent. And you can choose - you’ve got so many desperate people to choose from.

This week, Stuff ran an article about Becky Cassam who tried to rent her garage “sleepout” with no plumbing for $400 a week for a couple, or $300 a week for a single person.

A “sleepout” advertised in Carterton for $400 a week for a couple.

She said: “I had no idea of the new renting criteria. I’m a novice in this space. I had been renting it to a friend. He had been living there for 15 months, it was a win-win for both of us. I had no idea I was in breach of any code.”

Where does this attitude come from? Could it possibly have anything to do with an article published on the same day?

Property investor who bought five houses during Lockdown plans to own 25 by 2025

The intro of the article is as follows:

The day Christchurch property investment consultant Ana Meredith bought her first investment property she was nervous.

It was 2016 and property investing was completely new to her. What if the whole market crashed and no one could pay rent? What if no one wanted to rent her property?

Now, this is confusing to me because, if the market crashes and nobody pays rent - then Ana Meredith can sell her house. The idea that nobody would want to rent her property is absurd. Even in 2016 there was a rental crisis in major cities.

It wasn’t much of a risk.

She now owns five houses and aims to snap up more. It’s no longer a risk because people are paying $400 to live in a garage with no plumbing. Families are living in vans.

An underground unit in Wellington Central renting for $495 a week.

Not only will Meredith always have desperate people needing to live in her many houses - she can charge a huge amount and will be approved for more mortgages based on how many homes she owns.

New Zealand’s national median weekly rental price finished off last year 21 per cent higher than it was at the end of 2015 according to the latest Trade Me Rental Price Index.

Property rents rose for a third straight month in December, hitting new record highs.

Rent hikes have regularly outpaced inflation, which has been between 0.1 and 2.5 percent over the past five years. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's data shows the median rent went up 30 percent in the past five years.

Where’s the risk?

Meredith is onto a winner - the more houses she buys the more rent she gets to buy more houses. The more houses she owns the less houses are available to first-home buyers. She can charge more rent increasing it every 180 days as she has been able to do since 2016 (this will change in August apparently). It is literally foolproof yet repeatedly we’re sold the idea that it takes great skill to hoard homes and rent them.

In all of these articles the person doing the buying and renting has no experience. It’s right there in the intro: “It was 2016 and property investing was completely new to her”.

The message is clear: Anyone can be a landlord, anyone can buy property. Once you have property, it’s easier to get more property. This is just how the system works. This is called “capitalising on equity” because it sounds better than “made a lot of money buying homes and flipping them or renting them for as high as the owner could rent them for”.

“Prior to 2020, she had bought five houses in five years by capitalising on the equity in properties as it grew.

This to me is the crux of it. Whenever I’m critical of the housing market in New Zealand I get people earnestly telling me that landlords “care”. They “really, really care”. After all, “someone needs to be a landlord!” I get told “it’s really, really hard”. If only I knew how hard it was!

“The process worked for her as a significant side hustle”.

Do you know what my side hustle is? Reviewing sex toys. That’s a side hustle. Holding the livelihoods of five families in your hands is not a side hustle.

21 Marion Street. This is the only room with an opening window, although the window does not close.

Auckland's median rent is up 4 percent to $575. Let’s assume her homes get just median rent: That’s $149,500 a year. Nice side hustle if you can get it. What is her main hustle?!

But it was all discipline apparently. Meredith just works harder than us. She gets out of bed at 3.40am. The article reads: “It wasn't stress or anxiety that drove her out of bed at what most Kiwis would consider an ungodly hour, but her desire to make the most of her family time later in the day.

"That was really important for me during lockdown. Also, I knew I had a job to do and I knew I had to come up with some other form of income."

Good for her! It sure beats waking up with the sun because you’re sleeping in your car and you have no curtains. Or trying to get ready in your garage without waking the kids so you can get to your supermarket shift at 5am where you’ll be paid $17.20 an hour. Luckily lockdown wasn’t stressful for essential workers huh?

Maybe they can make the most of their family time after their double shift? The kids will be home because they can’t invite other people over because they live in a make-shift sleep out and they’re embarrassed.

Look, I am being snarky. I know it. But honestly, it really gets to me! The callous disregard just astounds me. You can’t be that oblivious to how people in New Zealand live. Every conversation I have with friends eventually turns to housing - who is living in her brother’s garage, who had to move back home with the kids, who got another rent increase.

There’s no reason for anyone to own five properties. There just isn’t. But if you want that to be your “side-hustle” (ugh!) and the Government bends over backwards to make sure you can at the expense of our working class: Fine. I hate it, but I’m not in charge.

But must we have this fantasy sold to us constantly in the media? Must we see every bloody story of privileged white people saying if we just got up at 3.40am it’d all be fine? We’d solve the housing crisis if we just took more risks! It’s a fantasy!

This is not the New Zealand we live in! This is the New Zealand a few select people get to live in. And we have to stop denying it.

A Te Aro flat with no windows.

In just a few decades housing has become something we use to exploit desperate people so a few already wealthy people can further line their pockets. Isn’t anyone stopping and saying: Just because I can make money this way, should I make money this way?

One quote really stuck out to me. To me it just perfectly encompasses the mentality we’re seeing from landlords: "I guess when you want your goal that much, things just fall in place."

If only we all just wanted a a safe home and stability a bit more, we could all be so lucky. It would just…fall into place.

On a totally unrelated note: I wrote about salps this week! I am determined to make salps happen haha! Have a lovely weekend. Please cross your fingers tomorrow for nice weather for everyone getting married! x