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While he is a big advocate for investment property, speaking to Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast, McKnight said people should know it does take time to get their first property.

“The average age that somebody purchases their first home in New Zealand is 37 years old. And I think we sometimes get into this mindset that if you haven’t done it by 26, then you’re behind.

“No, only 50 percent of first home buyers purchase before they are 37. Fifty percent of first home buyers purchase after 37.

“One thing that I’d also like to change the narrative around is just about how many people are purchasing their first homes. A lot of people don’t realise that in 2024, first home buyers are making up a bigger chunk of the market than they almost ever have.”

McKnight said about 25 percent of the market is first home buyers, up from the standard 18 to 20 percent, so now is a good time to buy.

For those looking to buy their first home or their next investment property, McKnight has a number of tips on how to make it work for you.

The no-cash needed method

“So a lot of Kiwis, they want to grow their wealth, but they might not have a lot of money spare that they can put into shares, KiwiSaver, term deposits.

“But what a lot of people realise is that you can buy a house without having a lot of cash. So if I just walk you through my situation.

“I bought a house when I was 26, it went up in value, paid down some debt, and then I thought, ‘okay, well, I want to go and buy another house’. Well, I didn’t have the deposit.

“I didn’t save it up, but because my house had gone up in value, I borrow some money against that house as the deposit.

“And I take that money that I’ve borrowed from the bank, and I go put that down as the deposit on another investment property, and I borrow some money from the bank to purchase that, and I was able to buy my second investment property with no cash.

“I often say to first time investors, you’re effectively using your house or houses to go and buy more houses, and then as those increase in value, or you pay off some of the debt, that’s where you start to earn more of a return.”

What goes up in value the fastest - a house, townhouse or apartment?

“Usually what people say is the money’s in the land, and so a house must go up fastest, then a townhouse, and then an apartment, and it’s kind of in that order.

“So, you actually go out and you look out, look at the data, and what you see is that, yeah, apartments go up in value way slower than a house or a townhouse. Then you go and you look at the data and say, ‘Well, what about a house versus a townhouse?’ So you’d be like, ‘Well, surely a house has way more land and so should go up in value faster’. And it’s true, they go up a little bit faster, but the difference is so much more marginal than many Kiwis would think.

“I recently wrote a column for One Roof actually looking at that, and in some cases, we actually found that just because a house has more land, that doesn’t make it go up in value the fastest or faster.

“Might give you a few more options if you want to develop it. But actually, it’s the mid-sized sections that the average Kiwi can afford and the average Kiwi can buy, that’s what goes up in value the fastest.”

What do you need to know about maintenance on older properties

“Let’s say you buy a new built property. You’re probably going to get away with $500 a year. And in fact, in the first couple of years, you’re probably not even going to need to spend that. It’s going to be really cheap.

“Once you get to that kind of 10 to 20, 30 years, you start to say about $1000. Once you get up over that 30 plus years old, that’s when we say $3,000 a year is what you’d need to budget ballpark, but it’s quite lumpy.

“It’s kind of the older the property, the more maintenance.

“With maintenance, I wouldn’t do it as a percentage of the property. And the reason is that sometimes, especially in small towns, like out on the West Coast of the South Island, you’ve got a lot of cheap houses out there and actually they get a really good rental yield, so they get a lot of rent per week compared to the value of the property.

“But the issue is, that to replace a roof or a hot water cylinder kind of doesn’t matter what the value of the property is, it’s basically pretty much the same all around the country.

“And if you just buy a cheap house that is in a small part of the country, when you do need to replace the hot water cylinder or a heat pump or the roof, that makes up a huge percentage of the rent that you actually collect. And so sometimes it can be a bit of a false economy.”

Listen to the full episode for more advice from Ed McKnight on property, including:

Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.

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