You don’t actually ‘buy’ houses - property developer’s money philosophy

Saturday, 24 February 2024

These “settlers’ cottages” being built in Geraldine St, central Christchurch, and priced from $695,000, are some of Holloway’s favourite homes the company is building.

Vinny Holloway is the co-owner of Brooksfield, a townhouse development company that’s building brand-new ‘historic’ homes across Christchurch.

Holloway talks about his own journey in property.

VINNY: As co-owner of Brooksfield, I look after all the stuff that you see if you’re a customer; finding and buying the land, the design of the houses, alongside our English architect Ben Pentreath, who is based in London. Then, also selling the houses, with our in-house sales team.

(Business partner) Olly Hickman looks after the stuff you don’t see: construction timelines, finance, accounting, all the office stuff. I like to say “the stuff you wouldn’t want to do”.

Q: How did you get started?

This is the first house that Holloway renovated for himself, in the Christchurch suburb St Albans.

I started in the industry about 15 years ago doing my building apprenticeship straight out of school. I left that job literally the day I got signed off on my apprenticeship, and started working as a sales agent for an investment property company. That’s where I met Olly, at Opes Partners.

We started out buying earthquake-damaged homes and renovating and selling, or renovating and keeping. We eventually bought some land in Richmond, Christchurch, built some houses on there and that was the start of Brooksfield five or six years ago.

Initially, we just built your standard white-and-black plaster houses but I’ve always had a real passion for old architecture.

Vincent Holloway, of development company Brooksfield: “I’ve always had a passion for old architecture.”

I was living in an old villa, an earthquake-damaged house I did up in St Albans. We were looking to upgrade our house and I really wanted a colonial Georgian revival house, a popular house in Christchurch from the 1920s, 1930s.

They look like East Coast North American fishing village houses: Three- and five-bay symmetrical white houses with green shutters.

I realised the actual houses themselves were super simple, basically rectangular boxes with symmetrical windows. I thought we could turn some of our townhouses into that, so I drew over one of the current designs we were working with.

An artist’s impression of the home in Fendalton, Christchurch, that Brooksfield is building for Holloway, his partner and their daughter.

We did that for six months to a year, until I came across Ben Pentreath who works in new classical architecture - basically brand new houses that look old. He’s an expert at it and everything he does is period correct. He designs all of our houses now.

Q: What about your own home?

Right now, I’m renting a villa in St Albans with Tess, my fiancée and our one-year-old daughter. We’re building a house in Fendalton - a Georgian revival home designed by Ben Pentreath. It really fits in the area.

Oliver Hickman and Vincent Holloway met while working for an investment property company.

Q: What was the first house you owned?

I bought a wee HardiPlank three-bedroom on a cross-lease section on a really steep hill, the cheapest house you could buy in Tauranga (hometown) at the time, $335,000.

I still remember at the time the news was about how hard it is to buy houses for young people. I do find it funny that it’s always the same story: It is always hard to buy a house.

I kept it for five years and sold it when we bought our first section (for Brooksfield): We needed to pay for it.

Q: Do you own investment property yourself?

Susan Edmunds speaks with four mortgage advisers what how best to prepare yourself financially when buying a home.

Olly and I own a few industrial sheds, warehouses in Wigram and Sydenham. Most of our investment now is in Brooksfield townhouses. We have about 40 townhouses that we’ve built that we’ve kept as investments.

What I’ve always done ever since I was a building apprentice is lived relatively frugally and put all my spare money into property. That’s what I love.

I hate buying things that you buy them and then the next day they’re worth less. It’s quite stressful. You may as well just chuck the money out the window.

You don’t actually buy property. You swap property for money and then the property goes up in value faster than the money. You do buy clothes, because once you’ve bought them you can’t get the money back and they go down in value.

I don’t mean to make that sound too “avocado on toast is the reason you can’t buy a house” right now.

Q: What advice do you have for those trying to get on the property ladder?

One thing that helped me buy the first house was I just knew from looking around me that owning property must be a good thing. Everyone who I could think of who was wealthy, parents’ friends, a random uncle, they would have normal jobs that would pay as much as any other job. But the thing that set them apart was they owned multiple properties.

Property in New Zealand doubles roughly every 12 and a ½ years. When I bought, I just knew you must buy a property to get ahead because that’s what I’d seen; that’s why I bought a terrible house on a big sloping hill up on stilts.

The most important thing is to just do it.

What are your thoughts on the current state of the property market?

I don’t get too caught up in the day to-day. Because it changes with government policies, interest rates take it up and down.

The thing that’s most important to look at is over the long term, regardless of what government is in, what rules are implementing, is that property prices always do go up over time about 5 to 6 percent on average in a year.