How does the council build houses more "affordably" than anyone else?
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Christchurch Council signals intention to enter 'affordable' housing market
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For an 'affordable home,' what's the ratio
of the land to build price? The article says
they'll be built on Council-owned land. Will
these affordable pads be leasehold, then?
Or will the rates paid for the Council to
acquire the land in the first place be the
unspoken subsidy?
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the cost of setting up a subdivision must be enormous and i bet a good lump of that cost will be council fees and charges etc then the greedy developer wants to actually make a profit so that means the sections cost 200k plus, so any body in their right mind will build a more substantial house so that down the track they can make some money on selling it. when i started in the building industry in 1975 people built small houses, 2to3 bedrooms 1 bathroom no garage, mostly the only large houses were built by builders for themselves and they were just a big square ugly box sitting on top of a full big square ugly foundation with a dbbl garage and a gamesroom innit, now everybody builds 3to4 bedrooms master with ensuite, family bathroom separate toilet and a kitchen/dining/living area plus separate lounge and a double garage. What i dont get about affordable housing is obviously when the affordable house owner wants to sell they will be expecting top dollar so they can move up the food chain making that house unaffordable for the poor masses trying to get into the market
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One aspect of 'affordable housing' (whatever that means) not often mentioned in that context is the Accommodation Supplement, which is part of the income side of affordability. It is available to mortgagors as well as renters. As is Working for Families. Both are seriously expensive government subsidies for housing costs. AS is about a billion bucks a year.
There will always be people who never buy their own home,whether from choice or necessity. But unless born with the silver spoon, home ownership has never been a walk in the park. Just how much taxpayer money should be propping these people up?
And have you noticed that the folk who get wheeled out in the media to illustrate non affordable housing have almost invariable elected to have a family and thus reduce their income. Perhaps some of those taxpayer funds should go towards contraceptive education.
And, I know my family didn't live in a cardboard box in the middle of the road, but our first house was pre children, very very average, way out in the burbs, financed with a maximum two thirds loan and high interest rates. That one third deposit took 3 years of living frugally on less than one below average income. I know, I know, things are different now but still ....
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Originally posted by artemis View PostOne aspect of 'affordable housing' (whatever that means) not often mentioned in that context is the Accommodation Supplement, which is part of the income side of affordability.
A new entity the city council is setting up to drive the provision of affordable housing in Christchurch could lead to millions of dollars in extra revenue for the organisation and a drop in rent for some people in social housing.
The new entity is being set up by the council as part of a Housing Accord with the government and will be structured so that it qualifies as a community housing provider, meaning it can attract the new income-related rent subsidies.
Introduced this week the subsidies allow community housing providers such as churches and trusts to charge their tenants no more than 25 per cent of their income to rent social houses because the government then tops up the difference to the market rent of the house.
Currently the council misses out on the subsidies because it is expressly excluded as a community housing provider, despite being the second biggest landlord in the country.
Deputy mayor Vicki Buck told The Press the new entity would allow the council to get around that exclusion and potentially access millions of extra dollars in revenue from the government.
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Is the AS considered a Government subsidy ?
I think most people simply write or speak using that term, as opposed to the more technically accurate 'taxpayer funded subsidy approved and administered by the Govt'
Exactly as you did in your post.
Isn't this ChCh initiative using Govt funds for a 25% of income based rent proposal, as opposed to the AS which flows via the tenant to a private landlord ?Last edited by speights boy; 18-04-2014, 01:26 PM.
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The growing gap: New York City’s housing affordability challenge,
.............. in 2000, tenants earning $US20-40,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars were dedicating an average 33% of their income to rent.
12 years later that average jumped to 41%.
......................
Mr de Blasio said a cause of the affordable housing crisis “is the mismatch between demand for, and the supply of, housing.
This stems, in part, from the increasing desirability of calling New York home
For the first time in decades, more people are moving to or staying in the city than leaving:
our older residents are aging in place rather than moving after retirement,
our young families are remaining in the city rather than moving to the suburbs when their children reach school age,
empty-nesters are returning to the city after their children are grown, and people are moving to the city from all over the US,
as well as all over the world.
The attractiveness of the city is a hard-fought victory, and we must continue to retain & attract residents in order to prosper.
etc etc etc
http://www.propbd.co.nz/affordabilit...ce9d-284800325have you defeated them?
your demons
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Hmmm.. so unaffordable housing is a proxy measure of desirability of residence?
Nice idea but can't see this CCC adopting that framing.
While I don't doubt that demand/supply may be the underlying driver, the factors that lead to the relative imbalance (mobility v. inertia; quantity v quality) may be quite different.
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NZ House Prices Among World's Highest
02/09/2014
New Zealand's house prices are among the most overvalued in the world,
a new report by The Economist says. The magazine looked at house
prices in various countries around the globe and compared them to
rents and incomes in those countries.
It assessed the price-to-rent and price-to-income ratios against their
long-term averages to work out whether they were overvalued. New
Zealand houses were expensive by both measures, it found.
Housing Crisis Thread: click here.
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