What to look for at an Auckland open house
Whether you’re looking for your first home or your fiftieth, the open house process is always a bit disorienting. Eventually, the chain of front doors, entryways, living rooms, and bedrooms seem to flow together until it’s hazy to tell them apart. When looking for a home in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city and the country’s most competitive and lucrative property market, you need to be organized, confident and collected when trying to find a good investment.
Avoid confusion and plan accordingly – follow some of these tips on what to look for when visiting open houses in Auckland.
make a checklist
If you don’t want to fall into the trap of never being able to make up your mind, always visiting on open weekends without any real goal or purpose, it’s a good idea to write down your criteria for a suitable property in the form of a checklist first. Separate your needs and desires. Things like location and number of rooms are definitely necessities, but a view or a pool falls under the latter.
Limit your search
Stick to certain suburbs and list them in order of preference – if you work in Auckland Central, you may not want to look any further than Mount Eden, with Newton as the ideal. It’s important to think carefully about location, not only because of the great influence it will have on your lifestyle, but because location will play the biggest factor in future property value. If you have a young family, it is important to consider schooling opportunities. If you want your children to attend a high-decile secondary school like Kristin College in North Harbor or Baradene College in Remuera, you should look for housing in those areas, as Auckland schools have zoning criteria; in other words, you need to be residing within the school zone to enroll.
Avoid Leaky House Syndrome
Be aware of the symptoms of a leaky building and make sure you know when the house you are looking at was built. Auckland houses built in the 1990s are most at risk, with cladding and small eaves being a concern. Being able to spot the symptoms can help you steer clear, but you should know for sure if Leaky House Syndrome is a problem after a professional property inspection.
Insulation and Energy Efficiency
New Zealand is cold during the winter and Auckland tends to be a very temperamental city in terms of weather during any season, with the average winter temperature in the City of Sails around 11 degrees Celsius. Look for solid insulation and energy efficiency through a heat pump and well-designed rooms that allow for proper airflow and ventilation.
Know what you’re looking for before you head to any open house and stick to their checklist to make the process of finding a suitable property that much easier. When you have a clear idea of what you need and want in a home, you’ll have no trouble deciding where to make an offer and when to keep looking.
