What to Buy – New or Old?

One of our First Home Buyer Club Members ‘Amy’ asked;

“Would experts recommend home buyers buy a modern home or a older kiwi home and what is the better choice for resale value?”

Michael Guy of Bayleys Real Estate Orewa responded as follows;

“It depends on a number of factors.
If you can source an older Kiwi home that is well built with good timber, roof etc, and perhaps just needs a bit of modernising with a new kitchen and bathroom, you might be able to get it at a very good price as against buying a modern home. With a bit of do-it-yourself you may well be able to transform it into a very desirable home and lift the price considerably.
Renovated villas are very desirable, though people either love or hate them. There seems to be no-inbetween. Finding an old villa cheap and moving it onto a good section and then renovating it can increase its value by a considerable amount if you are can do a lot of the work yourself.
However if you buy a modern home you are very unlikely to lose money when it comes to resale as long as you haven’t paid over the market value for it. Buyers tend to move on around every 7-10 years by which time most properties have increased considerably and you will get a great capital gain.”