New Zealand’s housing crisis continues to hinder efforts of young New Zealanders to get into a house. Affordability remains a key challenge for many areas, with house price growth far outstripping income growth over the past decade. There are some supports provided to enable young Kiwis into home ownership, such as the First Home Grant, but where gets the most support? As our analysis shows, Canterbury is the centre of New Zealand’s first home buyer support efforts, with a considerable level of First Home Grants going to purchases in the region.
Category: Housing
How hard is the housing market around the regions?
Drawing inspiration from Emma Vitz’s maps showing how much income is needed for housing costs around New Zealand’s regions, we thought we’d compare costs with household incomes across cities and districts.
Chart of the month: Big bucks likely on The Block NZ
The Block NZ is back, and there couldn’t be a better time for people to give up three months of their lives in the hope of making some money. Our Chart of the Month shows there is a strong correlation between house price growth in Auckland and the average profits made on the show.
Beware the (in)accuracy of rental data
Recent concerns around the cost of housing have shone a spotlight on residential rents, with the previously unremarkable indicator now closely watched. But substantial changes to how rental data is now collated means that extreme caution should be used to evaluate recent rental trends.
No quick fix for housing crisis, no matter the announcement
The recent government’s announcement on housing has introduced substantial changes into an area of the economy where issues are readily identified, but solutions are less obvious, and notoriously hard to implement. With both supply and demand-side changes now underway, concerns have emerged over just what impact the policies together will have, and if they will fix the housing market.
From the beach 2021
Gareth Kiernan starts the year by looking at what we can expect of the New Zealand economy, and life in general, in 2021.
Reserve Bank independence a distraction from housing’s real issues
The Reserve Bank’s independence is an important feature of New Zealand’s economic framework. The government has some scope to include housing in the Bank’s policy objectives, and it must also ensure that the Bank takes an appropriately broad view of the economic effects of its policy decisions. But housing’s underlying problems will only be solved by more fundamental reforms of our tax system and settings around the supply of land.
Keeping tabs on our changing population
The need to understand our changing population has been more important than ever, as an unexpected wave of migration rendered previous projections obsolete. This article explores how this migration wave changed our population, and our view of the future.
Wide regional variations in residential building
Residential construction activity has held up much better than expected since the economy went into lockdown in late March. Some areas have seen a strong burst of activity, but others have seen a softening in anticipated building levels. This article explores some of the emerging regional trends in consent numbers, with detailed regional forecasts of activity available as part of our Regional Construction Outlook.
Too many houses are mouldy, damp, and cold
Housing remains a hot issue across New Zealand. But there’s not as much focus on the quality of the housing we endlessly debate. In part, this lack of focus is because we haven’t had great insights to work with – and what gets measured gets managed. But Infometrics analysis of Census 2018 data shows some disturbing results, with a concerning number of mouldy, damp or cold houses.