Wellington house sales: Lack of maintenance poses future risk when market slows

Nearly all homes sold in the third quarter made a profit, CoreLogic data shows. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The sale of unmaintained houses poses a risk for buyers once the market slows down, a Wellington real estate agent says.

CoreLogic data released this week shows 99 per cent of Wellington houses sold in the third quarter, sold for more then the original purchaser paid.

Sales Director at Tommy's Real Estate Nicki Cruickshank said that because there's such a high demand for houses, people aren't doing as much work on them to get them sale-ready.

"People are doing less than they did in the past simply because they don't need to in order to sell them."

Although houses are now selling easily without work, a lack of maintenance will impact the property market down the line, she said.

"If the market does slow down which it has to at some point houses that haven't been painted or maintained will sell for less because there's quite a huge cost these days in painting a house or re-piling it or roofing it."

"So down the track when the market slows down that lack of maintenance will have an impact on house prices."

As to when Wellington can expect this shift to occur, Cruikshank said it was unlikely to be anytime soon.

"Wellington cycle is about two years, so two years of growth and five years of steady," she said.

"This cycle we've had four years of steady growth which is unprecedented in Wellington, so we probably are in for a period soon where that will just be a steady to no increase for a couple of years.

The sale of unmaintained houses poses a risk for buyers once the market slows down. Photo / Mark Mitchell

"But at the moment with such a shortage of properties it's hard to see that changing."

Earlier in the week Finance Minister Grant Robertson took a step towards addressing soaring house prices by lobbying the Reserve Bank to change its mandate.