Homes

Whether you're looking for your first home or your fiftieth, the open home process is always a little disorientating. Eventually the string of front doors, entranceways, living rooms and bedrooms seem to flow together until telling them apart is confusing! When you're house hunting in Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city and the most competitive and lucrative property market in the country, you need to be organised, certain and collected when you're trying to find a good investment.

Avoid the confusion and plan properly - follow a few of these tips on what to look for when visiting open homes in Auckland.

Make a Checklist

If you don't want to fall into the trap of never being able to make up your mind, forever visiting weekend open days without any real goal or purpose, it's a good idea to note down your criteria for a suitable property in the form of a checklist first. Separate your needs and wants. Things like location and number of bedrooms are both definitely needs but the view or a swimming pool fall under the latter.

Narrow Down Your Search

Limit yourself to certain suburbs and list them in order of preference - if you work in Auckland Central you might not want to look further than Mount Eden with Newton being an ideal. It's important to think carefully about location not only because of the huge influence it will have over your lifestyle, but because location will play the biggest factor in the property's value down the road. If you have a young family, schooling opportunities are important to consider. If you want your children to attend a high decile secondary school such as Kristin College at North Harbour, or Baradene College in Remuera, you need to look for homes around those areas, as Auckland schools have a zoning criteria - in other words, you need to have a home address within the school zone to enrol.

Avoid Leaky Home Syndrome

Keep an eye out for symptoms of a leaky building and make sure you know when the house you're looking at was built. Auckland homes constructed in the 1990s are the most at-risk with claddings and small eaves a definite cause for concern. Being able to spot symptoms can help you to steer clear, but you should know for certain if leaky home syndrome is a problem after a professional property inspection.

Insulation and Energy Efficiency

New Zealand gets cold during the winter and Auckland tends to be a very temperamental city in terms of weather during any season, with average winter temperature in the City of Sails is around 11 degrees celcius. Look for solid insulation and energy efficiency through a heat pump and well-designed rooms that allow proper airflow and ventilation.

Know what you're looking for before you head to any open home and stick to your 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 on where to make an offer and when to keep on looking.

View Real Estate listings on the Ray White Papakura website today.

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