Kerre Woodham: Is property still an investment, or just a home?

There's an old saying, "there's money in muck". And that still holds true – waste recovery contributed $3.3 billion to the economy last year. But another old saying, "safe as houses", doesn't ring quite so true. There were just over 6,500 property transactions across New Zealand in September, according to the latest CoreLogic report. And that's around 14% fewer than the same month last year. It's the ninth consecutive year on year decline. 

New Zealand house values are falling overall, down 1.3% nationally over the year to September 2026, again according to the CoreLogic data. But it should be noted that it's a two-speed market – the South Island's going gangbusters and without that region holding up, the national average would be a lot worse. In Auckland, average property values are down about 3.2% annually. In Wellington, it's a dumpster fire. They're down 28% from the 2021 peak, which is pretty tough. 

Property used to be seen as a safe investment, people saw it as a way to make money. That's only relatively recently though, probably in the last 25 years. Before that, it was a place to live. It was a home. It was a roof over your head. It wasn't seen as a great big ATM that you could dip into and have enormous fun spending up once your equity got to a certain point or the mortgage was paid off. Unless you are a true professional and that's your job, you know houses, you know what to do with them, you can spot good bones, you can make a lot of a rundown property using your own skill and vision and abilities. I don't think anyone sees property as a safe investment now, do they? 

And even once you'd paid off your mortgage on the property, in the olden days, you had so much money. You had so much money left over, you had so much money in the property, you could upsize, you could downsize, you could buy a bach, you could use the house as an ATM again. But I'm not sure that that still stands true either. Even if you've paid off your mortgage, if you want to sell, you've got to find a buyer, and in a market like this, it's pretty tricky. If you want to downsize, if you want to go into a retirement village, if you want to move to be closer to grandchildren, it can be pretty tricky even with everything signed off. And that's kind of the contract we enter into, that you pay off your mortgage and then you have choices, then you have options. I'm not entirely sure those choices and options are there now. And I don't know how long it will be before the good old days return, if they ever do. 

I'd love to hear from those of you who have either bought a rental property, do you believe the good old days will return? Is that what you're doing it for, to make money from it, or do you just want a steady little 3% return on your investment and you're good at fixing things up, you don't need to employ a property manager, you're good. If you're a young person who's bought into their first home, and thank heavens for you because you are the ones holding up the market, would you or do you see your property as a home or as an investment? Something that's going to grow in value over time that you can then turn to your advantage. If you've paid off the mortgage, do you want to downsize or relocate and are you stuck? Are you looking to buy another property like a bach or a rental, or are you going to put your money into managed funds? That being said, the housing market is not what it was, we still have $1.66 trillion in housing assets, and it accounts for about 50% of household assets. That is a lot of money. Houses still cost a lot, we still need a place to live, you still want a place to raise the family. But are we back to the days of seeing it as a home and not an investment, or do you still believe that there's gold in the foundations of where you're living right now?