The stigma of leaky homes is so great that home owners could stand to lose almost a quarter of their property's value - even after it has been repaired to current building standards.
New research, due to be published in early 2017 has found the price of certain homes built in the 1990s and 2000s, could drop up to 21 per cent - almost $300,000 on the average Auckland house price or just over $130,000 for the national house price.
Titled Leaky Building Stigma: Can it be Eliminated by Remediation, the Massey University research showed there was still a public perception that saw monolithic clad homes (those most commonly linked to weather-tightness issues) as being problematic - irrespective of their actual condition.
Researchers Song Shi, Iona McCarthy and Uyen Mai undertook a qualitative survey of 114 property professionals and used a statistical model to establish that general market stigma around such properties, regardless of condition, led to an 11 per cent discount in value.
A five to 10 per cent "post-remediation stigma" discount also applied dependent on the scale of the issue. This could be reduced to 3.73 per cent if the buildings were re-clad with a more "traditional look" not linked to leaky buildings.
Lead researcher Song Shi said stigma could linger for up to 15 years post repairs, driven by concern about monitoring, financing and marketing and general "uncertainty" as to the buildings' robustness.
"It doesn't matter if a building is leaky or not, sound or not, because the market can't tell and it's costly for the home owners to identify the problem."
Monolithic cladding, used during the building boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, has been linked with higher rates of leakage, leading to wood rot, toxic mould and structural integrity issues.