The home I couldn’t sell helped me buy another

A job transfer made me an accidental landlord in 1992. Three years later, the equity in that same home helped fund my next property investment.

Author: Kieran Trass Head of Research, Staircase. Property cycle analyst and author of five books on the New Zealand market.

My first rental property was not a carefully selected investment. It was the home I couldn’t sell.

In 1992, a job transfer took me out of Auckland. The property market was in a slump and the home I had owned and lived in for three years had fallen about 20% in value. Selling then would have wiped out my equity.

So I rented it out instead. That was how I became an accidental landlord.

Three years later, the property was worth 40% more than I had originally paid. I was able to borrow against that increased equity to fund the deposit on another investment property.

What had looked like a financial setback became the starting point for something much better. But there is a part of that story that deserves more attention: the recovery only helped me because I still owned the home when it arrived.

That is why I see property management as more than someone finding a tenant and collecting a fee. At Staircase, it is part of helping owners keep their investment working while they get on with their lives.

Eight homes a day. Not always by choice.

About 3,000 New Zealand homes a year are now withdrawn from sale and listed for rent within three months. That is roughly eight a day. The figure was under 2,000 in 2023 and 5,500 at the 2021 peak.

The same move, but different motives. Cotality’s Kelvin Davidson suggests the 2021 surge reflected people choosing to become landlords. The recent rise, he suspects, is more likely to include developers unable to sell at a high enough price and ordinary owners unable to secure an acceptable offer, or any deal at all.

For these owners, the rental market has become the waiting room for the sales market.

These are changes in advertising, not a count of new landlords or a net increase in rental homes. They also tell us something about the sales market: a property withdrawn from sale has not been bought. Fewer listings can reflect owners stepping back, not just buyers stepping up.

Waiting for the market should not mean waiting for the rent

A possible rise in value will not pay this month’s mortgage. Rent helps meet the cost of holding a property, but only when there is a tenant in place and the money actually arrives.

Staircase’s property management figures show average rent arrears below 2% and vacancies below 1%.

We are proud of those results because they address two separate risks to an owner’s income. An empty property earns nothing. An occupied property with overdue rent can still leave its owner short of money.

For someone weighing up whether they can afford to keep their home, these are not background statistics. They belong in the decision about who should manage it.

Our work includes screening tenants, managing the tenancy and coordinating maintenance, with a focus on minimising downtime between tenants. That is active management of the holding period, not simply waiting for the market to improve.

The highest rent on paper can leave you worse off

Your mortgage does not set the rent. The alternatives available to tenants help determine what your property can attract.

Realestate.co.nz’s August 2026 figures put average advertised rent at $637 a week nationally, up 1.5% over the year. Auckland was $689, up just 0.8%. The site had 8,379 properties available for rent, 0.9% more than a year earlier. These are asking rents and advertised availability on one platform, not signed tenancy rents or the total rental stock.

Consider a simple illustration. A property rented immediately at $700 a week earns $36,400 over 52 weeks. Hold out for $720, leave it empty for two weeks, then collect 50 weeks of rent: the total is $36,000.

The higher weekly rent has left the owner $400 worse off.

That calculation assumes all rent is paid and excludes expenses. It is not an argument for accepting any tenant. It is an argument for judging the rent, tenant selection and vacancy together.

The same thinking applies when comparing management fees. Look beyond the percentage charged to the income received and the work done to protect it. Staircase’s vacancy and arrears figures deserve a place in that comparison, alongside a realistic rental appraisal.

A home is not automatically a compliant rental

Having lived happily in a property yourself does not establish that it is ready to rent.

Healthy Homes requirements cover heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture and drainage, and draught stopping. Smoke alarms, tenancy paperwork and records also need attention.

Staircase’s Healthy Homes work has earned industry recognition. At the 2025 Tenancy Master Class Awards, Staircase was recognised among the top three large independent offices in the Northern North Island for Healthy Homes Excellence.

For an owner suddenly becoming a landlord, that is expertise in precisely the area they may never have needed to think about before. Our service includes Healthy Homes reporting, alongside inspections and maintenance support.

We take pride in that recognition because the responsibility runs both ways: protecting an owner’s investment and taking the living conditions of the people who call it home seriously.

1,500 five-star reviews. And one telling sentence.

Across Staircase, we have received over 1,500 five-star Google reviews. That is recognition we value. But one property management client’s explanation gets straight to what an owner is buying.

Avinash Bookwala says he has very little to do because “we know it’s taken care of.”

That is the difference between owning a rental and feeling as though you have taken on another job. Owners should not have to become tenancy experts, coordinate every repair or chase their property manager to find out what is happening.

Our teams in Auckland, Tauranga and Queenstown provide tenant screening, inspections, rent collection, repairs and regular owner updates, with maintenance support from our own team and trusted tradespeople.

For someone who has moved for work, as I did, that support has a very practical value. Your life can move to a different city without every property issue following you there.

The aim is not simply to postpone a sale

Keeping a property still needs to make financial sense. Expected rent must be tested against mortgage payments, rates, insurance, maintenance, management and vacancy. Remember that mortgage principal repayments reduce debt: not every dollar leaving your account is an investment loss.

My experience is not a three year forecast for today’s owners. A recovery can take longer, and values can fall further. The holding plan needs to work without relying on a particular price rise by a particular date.

Staircase’s wider services include lending, insurance and property accounting, so owners can consider the tenancy alongside the financial decisions that support it.

In my case, renting out my former home did more than get me through a difficult sales market. It preserved an asset whose equity later helped fund my next investment.

You may not have planned to become a landlord. Staircase can help you plan what happens next.

Talk to Staircase Property Management about a rental appraisal, preparing your home and putting experienced management behind your decision. Call 0800 694 683.