Hi Well Dunedin has changed since you were here last
you pick up a dive in Dundas st now for $200,000- $250,000 & you might if your lucky get $300pw for it
but there are plenty of empty student flats here at the moment & rent deductions going on, Infact in this mornings paper it was mentioned that there are 43 knowen student flats sitting empty as you read this
With this “property boom” gone are the days of cashflow positive propertys in good old Dunedin, we have several here (not student rentals, I keeped well away from that side ) & they are all highly cash flow positive ie brought in the last 8 years or so when it was the norm to buy a normal well maintained family home for 75K to 85K & let it for $160- $180 pw, now we have paid a 50% of their purchase prices off (ie we owe half as much yet today lay are easy to let for $225 – $250pw

what has also happend here is that the quality of rental propertys has gone up alot, even 8 years ago here, if you had a cheap dump, you could easy let it for good money, those days are long gone & the students can now be very picky ( which is a good thing, as we brought what I call “normal” family homes, not the classical “renters” which are now hard to sell (to local investors) very hard to let
I think Dunedin is a great place to have invested a few years back, I’m now waitng for the bust in the market, so I can get back into it, we have had alot of aussie investers buying up here & there have been some huge gains because of it, I hope they dont get burnt too much, as in many cases I know, I have seen real big (for Dunedin) prices paid by Aussies (some people here were buying for $80,000 – $90,000 & within a few weeks had onsold to Aussies (who thought these were cheap) for $120,000 $140,000, sure these have gone up even further now, (mainly because of out side investers) while all the local investers are just sitting, waiting & the time will come, when some of these huge gains have a “correction”

I hope this is of help