[nathan]

Hello Kai,
I am no expert so I can only provide an educated opinion. You have got yourself into a good position, that first thing you need to do is to decide what you wish to achieve out of property investing, from what you have written it seems you are looking at what is the best course of action for the next five years, you should also consider the next ten and fifteen years.

No one can say what will happen to property as an investment in the next five years though historically property has always risen over a fifteen year period and if you time it right it can double in around seven to eight years.

What you should consider at the moment is a property with good cash flow, you should do some research on the areas around Napier/Hastings and see what sort of rent you can get for those 150k properties, consider doing some renovations to get better rent, if they return a +ve cashflow before tax then do it.

Even if you buy one property in the next five years you will be in a better position then waiting because if you wait (all things being equal) the prices of houses will go up as well so you will not improve your position, on the other hand by getting a property now you get the experience and some capital gain.
Good luck