Meanwhile be very careful buying anything in Brighton within the 1:50 year floodzone which is a huge percentage of the homes (And beware in much of Christchurch). You think your odds are okay, but sea level rise means the risk increases over 20 years, and the sum of the risk ends up very freaking high over decades.
If there is flooding, it will be like the earthquake. Prices will drop drastically within whole suburbs, houses will become uninsurable, and as-is prices will occur. Some suburbs will become very undesirable, which will have severe negative value. If you have a mortgage, you can lose all your money due to gearing.
Meanwhile over time insurance premiums are going sky-high - mine went up 33% last year and I’m on a higher part!
Don’t buy in floodzone areas.
I am going to buy a bare property on the hills to hedge my potential losses since I can’t insure against sea level rise. If there is sea level rise, my property will decrease in value, but hopefully that is offset by an increase in value of a hillside property.
Cheers
I have heard it said “rotten houses filled with rotten people”: wooden houses with zero maintenance left to rot by investors waiting for market to improve so they can make a profit, terrible houses results in desperate people renting, resulting in a broken society. I don’t blame poor people, but there are definite problems that they come with.
Same problem with Brighton Mall (majority owned by two wealthy Christchurch families) that have zero incentive to invest their own money and every incentive to get local government to develop the area. If shops in Brighton Mall were owned by individuals, I suspect it would be a pretty nice place (not a wasteland).
If more homes in Brighton were owned by individuals, they spend time and money to make them better, and they have incentives to create a common community for themselves.
My point is not “capitalist greed”, it is that taking an individuals lifetime savings away from them is very bad I think.