In this blog I look at the tax implications of a New Zealander investing in property offshore. While there is much coverage of the implications of investing in property in NZ, there is less commentary on offshore investment.  While many of the same rules apply, there are some additional hooks that can catch the unwary. At a commercial level ... More 

Even before Winston Peters made his announcement that he would form a coalition government with Labour, we were seeing some disturbing trends in the banking sector. You need to be aware of these if you are looking to buy a home or investment property.  There have been a number of cases where bank customers have been granted preapprovals, only ... More 

From my personal experience over the years, I have learnt that the best time to buy properties is towards the end of November, December and January.    Towards the end of November most vendors are looking at offloading their stock to avoid holding costs, as the chances of the next settlement date will be in February i.e. they will ... More 

In my day to day interaction with clients I meet a lot of small business owners who are in their embryonic stage. They are busy practising their particular expertise and, as such, most budding entrepreneurs do not willingly spend time thinking about the administration of the business.  I understand that, as they want to make a dollar before they ... More 

As you may be aware, there is a new law that requires all tenanted homes to be insulated by 1 July 2019. Anyone who owns rental property must ensure their properties are insulated to the required standard by this date. At GRA we’ve been getting a lot of questions about whether the cost of insulating a rental property is ... More 

It is a requirement in New Zealand for parties to provide their IRD numbers when buying or selling real estate (whether as an individual or through another entity such as a company or trust). Normally this does not pose any sort of problem. However, there will be significant issues if you are selling a property that has been generating ... More 

Recently I've seen several interesting client problems which would undoubtedly have resulted in lots of money being lost and lots of legal fees being incurred if these clients hadn't had GRA's Professional Trustee on board.  Having now experienced three property cycles in my adult lifetime, I know these sorts of issues (and others) commonly arise when an economy and ... More 

It’s been an interesting start to 2017 with a much tighter credit market than what we have seen for most of the last decade. While the majority of the media have been concentrating on the fact that the market seems to have slowed since the 40% deposit rule introduction, I put more down to banks themselves pulling back in ... More 

At Property Ventures we are increasing our focus on new builds as investments because we see tremendous advantages from a financing perspective. Not only do investors get pristine new and low maintenance properties in better areas, they get the benefit of 80% LVRs and tax advantages from higher chattel depreciation.   These smart tax and finance benefits make investing ... More