Housing Crisis What Housing Crisis?

[McDuck]

A very good article by Tim Hazeldine in the Herald

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10865494

I particularly like the comment
"We read that home ownership rates have declined, to 65 per cent. Well, actually, last time I checked, home ownership rates were bang on 100 per cent: every NZ home was owned by someone."

.

You’ve misunderstood the commutative law.
Every house being owned is not the same as everyone owning a house.
I think they teach you this in the very first year of school…or at least they did when I was five.

[motivated]

You could build a basic no frills 100m2 3bedroom first home for around $1500/m2 on flat land= total cost of $150000approx . Now add the land cost on --- There are not many places where you could get a section for less than $100000. The land cost is the real issue. WHY ??? The way the RMA functions and council greed. You need big money to be a land developer. Those that have the capital work the system (set up by councils/RMA) to their advantage--and the same wealthy people buy up farmland years ahead of rezoning, and eventually eke the supply out. Supply and demand sets high section prices.
The system is causing the problem

[mattinvestor]

If everyone lives in the house does not mean everyone owns the house. I personally do not consider owning anything until it I is paid off in full. You know you can always lose your house if you fail to pay your mortgage. The truth is: only few people can actually afford buying a house. Most of us spend half of our lives to pay off our mortgages and loans...

[Keys]

Most of us spend half of our lives to pay off our mortgages and loans...

And then retire without the stress of paying rent or a housing loan.

[Arpoo]

nz wants/demands

1st world; wages, pensions, benefits and housing

and expects to pay for it all with 2nd world productivity

doesn't work

never has

never will

New Zealand ranks 22^nd among the 30 OECD nations in terms of labour productivity

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publicat...p/08-02/05.htm

Second that!

[Davo36]

As far as I can tell, building a new house costs at least as much as buying an existing one.
Also, I do not see any builder of new houses making extravagant profits. Just a normal business profit at best. "Affordable" (ie low income) housing is not profitable to build, which is why no-one is doing it.
Therefore I cannot see how building more new houses will reduce the overall price level (unless, as Labour and the Greens seem to propose, there is a taxpayer subsidy on the new builds).

Well when I said we need to build more homes, I meant we'd have to do a bunch of things to do so. Things like:

• rezone a bunch of land for residential development.
• make brownfields sites available to developers - that is the government sells it to them - on builders terms, i.e the builder pays once they units are sold.
• remove things like development contributions and all the other layers of fees.
• process resource and building consents way faster and cheaper.
• in fact, throw away most planning regulations.
• let overseas players bring in cheap materials. Currently when they do, they get accused of 'dumping' by the big NZ players and forced to stop e.g. plasterboard from Thailand.
• perhaps relax the building standards a bit so that perhaps every home doesn't have to built as though we live in Germany.

They are doing most of these things Britain now. Why? Because up until recently building a house was nigh on impossible and they have an increasing population.

And it's these things which would bring down the cost/price of a house over time.

[motivated]

Davo is on the right track

[Perry]

I think that there can be little doubt that however
one describes the alleged 'housing' or 'affordability'
problem, those who most complain about it are the
ones causing it. The pious hand-wringing & crocodile
tears are the epitome of hypocrisy.

[epsomtax]

He made some interesting points, but notice what his job is? Professor of Economics at Akl Uni. Is this a person who is living in a mouldy cramped apartment with noisy neighbours? I think not.

[mattinvestor]

And then retire without the stress of paying rent or a housing loan.

You are right, but with the economy today it is more and more people who buy houses and then end up in foreclosures. I personally do not like take loans. If I cannot buy it with my own cash, I just do not buy it.

[Perry]

Nothing is won without sacrifice.

[flyernzl]

Bruce Sheppard has a new slant on why there is a 'housing crisis':

" You seem to have blamed the housing boom on women wanting bigger houses - isn't that more about men showing off to each other?

It is actually biology. Women want to mate with the best darn male specimen that will produce the best darn kids. Ten thousand years ago that was the biggest, strongest hunk, now it is the guy who has the biggest wallet. Today it is the biggest house, in the 1960s it was cars. Men want to have the biggest fan of peacock feathers to attract the best peahen. Now, of course, career women have money so they don't need the men for that, so back we go 10,000 years. In 25 years, guys, you will all have to be hunks to get partners to breed with and women will all be 10 years older than you."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10871075

[TheLiberalLeft]

"Today it is the biggest house". That is the largest pile of bollocks I've read all year. The women only have to turn around and keep the bugger clean. Large houses are a constant cleaning job, usually while the man is out working.

[flyernzl]

There's always 'Meticulous Maids'.

[Maccachic]

Agree with LL I really don't see the point in a huge house way to much work and a waste of space.