Plot twist! I bought a house in Wellington. This may be a surprise as my previous post: Buying a House in Wellington, Why it’s Not for Me is one of the most-read posts on this blog. I wrote this in September 2019 and if things on the housing market in New Zealand were bad then, it feels even more bonkers now. The housing market in New Zealand has previously been called the worst in the world and has even previously been named a human rights crisis by the UN. However, with a recession looming, the bubble seems to be bursting and prices are taking a dip. Should we have waited? we will never know, these are the things that you just can’t predict. But despite the doom and gloom, Lucas and I have managed to buy a house here that we (for the most part) love. Read on for a story of why we changed our minds, what happened to us, and also my tips for how to buy a house in Wellington.
Our story and what we learned through buying a house in Wellington:
After our initial attempt at buying our first home in Wellington back in 2019, we had well and truly given up as I well and truly broadcasted in my previous blog post. At this time we pivoted our plans to go back and live in Australia to be nearer to family and friends. We were gearing up to make this move when the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down in March 2020. Due to all the uncertainty, we made the decision to stick in NZ for the foreseeable, and with our savings still in the bank, it made sense to try and buy a house, so we were on the hunt for a house in Wellington again.
The first house we put an offer into was a nice house in Miramar in May 2020. We thought it would be a good time to jump in a decided to go for it. It was cosy but a bit out of date. After lots of research and many house viewings, due to conversations with the estate agent, we knew we were the only ones to be putting an offer in, so we went with a reasonable but low offer. The vendors decided it wasn’t enough, so we went in at what they were looking for but with one condition of reviewing the LIM. They kept us waiting for 2 days and then let us know that they had accepted an offer for $5000 more from someone with no conditions. Now, I’m not a fool and I know that something went on with the agent and my guess is that he told the other buyer what our offer was and managed to get a slightly better one.
Learnings: Put a time limit on your offer and try with all your might not to have conditions.
More Learnings: Estate Agents don’t care about you – don’t trust any of them!
We lost that Mirimar house which in hindsight went for a really reasonable price, and then as if by magic….in late 2020 the market skyrockets into oblivion. We didn’t put in another offer until September 2020 and by then everyone was on the market.
We offered two more houses in Miramar and lost out by a good amount for both. Both needed work and both went for about $70k more than our offer. But this experience did allow us to gauge what houses were going for, and then finally when our perfect dream home in Wilton came on the market in December 2020, we understood what it would take to get it and we worked with our bank to get specific preapproval and won the house.
Learnings: The market peaks and dips – the bubble always bursts, try not to panic when everyone else is.
After 3 years and 6 offers, we have our first home! a 1950s state home with an amazing view. It needs a little bit of work but was possible to move straight into and slowly chip away at.
It was a process, but here are a few tips about the process for how to buy a house in Wellington from our experience:
How to buy a house in Wellington:
- Start looking. Start going to open homes, casually before you are even ready. This will help you get an understanding of what the market is like at the time you are buying. Take note of all the properties you like and find out what they sell for, at least then you know what you can afford. Properties don’t tend to go for anywhere near what they are listed at so this research is paramount. This will also help you decide on what your criteria are.
- Get your pre-approval. The first thing you need to work out is how much money you have to spend. You will need to work with your bank/mortgage broker to do this. We went solely through our bank rather than a broker initially as this was easier, and then we worked with a mortgage broker after the offer was accepted, in order to get the best deal possible on the mortgage.
- Find a lawyer. You will need a lawyer who can check over all your documents every time you want to put in an offer, so having one that is ready and available to look at your stuff when you need it is a great idea. We worked with Succeed Legal who I think was awesome. Every time we offered, we had them look over all the documents to make sure there were not any huge red flags. This was expensive, but kind of essential.
- HUNT! Although you will already be looking, once you have your budget in place now is the time to get serious. You will more than likely be giving up all your Sundays for a wee while in order to do this, but think of it as fun and tie in some coffees in your fave Wellington suburbs and you’ll be all good!
- Offer. Once you have found the one you like, its time to make an offer. Put in your best offer and you might just get the house. You have done your research in step 1 so you know what to expect and you know what kind of offer needs to be done to clinch it. Do whatever you can to make your offer unconditional if possible and make the offer really easy for the vendor to accept. Get the lawyer to check all the docs so you will be good to go.
- Celebrate! Or get back on the horse. We put in 6 offers before we got our house and we ended up with the house we loved the most out of all of them. So do not be too downhearted if you do not get it, just keep trying it will happen eventually, even if you have to adjust your criteria a little bit.
Extra tips for buying a house in Wellington:
- Know that the market is crazy and don’t let it overwhelm you. We are all in it together and it is unfair and horrible.
- You will probably be paying more than seems reasonable. Lucas and I found this so hard to begin with but if we had just been accepting of this, we probably would have bought a house back in 2018.
- Keep looking and researching and talking to the agents for all the houses you see.
- Don’t trust estate agent – they never really tell you the truth and they will do everything they can to get the best price and the easiest sale – My story in my previous post and my experience with the Miramar house taught me this.
If you are struggling with this process – reach out, please. I had many teary sleepless nights throughout it all and know how demoralizing and frustrating it can seem. The amount of time and emotion that goes in is huge.
Most of all Good luck!
If you are keen to hear about our previous journey with the Wellington housing market, check out my post, Buying a House in Wellington, and Why its not for me.
Looking to rent, you can read about our experience with renting in my Wellington Apartment Tour from our old apartment – maybe I will do another house tour soon 🙂
Thanks for reading and come back soon.
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Lots of love,
Josie x
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