If your home needs work — earthquake damage, years of deferred repairs, or anything in between — the traditional selling process probably isn’t designed with you in mind. Listing through a real estate agent assumes a property that’s ready for the market. An As Is Where Is sale is a different path, and for many Canterbury homeowners it’s a simpler one.
Here’s what it actually involves.
You sell directly to us — no agent in the middle
When you sell through an agency, the agent is working on your behalf to find a buyer. Their fee comes out of your sale price, and the person you’re ultimately transacting with is a stranger who found your listing online.
When you sell As Is Where Is to us, we’re the buyer. Kane and Ronan handle every transaction personally, from the first phone call through to the day the title changes hands. There’s no third party managing the conversation, and there’s no commission being taken off the top.
We also cover the legal costs for the people we purchase from, which means the price you agree to is what you receive on settlement day — not a figure that gets quietly reduced before the money lands.
We value your home based on its actual condition, not comparable sales down the street
A real estate agent’s approach to pricing typically looks at what similar homes in the area have sold for and extrapolates from there. For a standard property that works well enough. For an As Is Where Is home, it misses something important.
Two homes on the same street can look identical on paper but carry very different repair costs. A property that needs $100,000 of work and one that needs $200,000 of work will both have the same comparable sales around them — but the As Is Where Is value of each is different, because the cost to bring them back to a fully insured, liveable standard is different.
We work backwards from end value. We look at what the property would be worth once the work is done and it’s back on the market, then subtract what it takes to get it there. That’s the number we offer you — and we put it in writing, transparently, so you can see exactly how we arrived at it.
Settlement works around your situation, not ours
One of the practical differences that matters most to people is flexibility around timing. When a property sells at auction, settlement can move quickly and the timeline isn’t always in your control.
With us, settlement is built around what you need. Some people want to move in a fortnight. Others are building a new home and need a year, with progress payments structured across that period to help with construction costs. If you simply need time to find your next place, that’s fine too.
There’s no pressure and no arbitrary deadline. The settlement date is whatever works for you.
What happens after you hand over the keys
Once the contract is signed and the sale completes, your responsibility ends. The contract removes any risk or warranties from the previous owner — we’re buying the property as it is, where it is, and anything that arises after settlement is ours to deal with. There are no comebacks.
We have helped over 450 Canterbury homeowners move forward from difficult property situations. The feedback we hear most consistently is that the process felt stress-free, fair, and more straightforward than people expected — and that dealing directly with Kane and Ronan made a real difference. For us, it has always been about more than buying houses. It is about helping people move forward with confidence and giving them the fresh start they have been looking for.
If you have a property you would like to talk through, we are happy to have a conversation with no obligation on your part.
Call us on 0800 697 827 or visit mynewstart.co.nz/contact.
