Housing Crisis What Housing Crisis?

[Jonette]

Its misleading to quote wages vs rents, households actually pay rents out of household income, which includes wages, but may have a whole lot more. Household income from stats includes:
1. Wages of all members of the household
2. Government payments, eg accommodation supplement, benefits, working for families etc
3. Income from business profits or shares etc

I publish comparisons of just this data, which show for most cities and especially NZ as a whole, the ration of Rents (MBIE) to household income (Stats dept) has been constant for over 20 years:

Wellington & Auckland charts by selected suburbs and selected regions and NZ on my jonette website

Subscribe to get more details like this :-)

[Bob Kane]

Its misleading to quote wages vs rents,

No-one quoted rents.

[klauster]

No-one quoted rents.

Quoted or not – Jonette made a fair point.

It's tolerated running everything at crisis level (defined by politicians and supported by the media).

Regarding housing, I’ve been driving since last year monthly 2000-3000km - same routes and monitor places of new build houses, unsold and empty since last year. Also landlords keeping rentals vacant not finding suitable tenants for renovated homes meeting govt standards. It looks to me like a social crisis for tenants who lost their home (because of extensive renovations, sold rentals, etc) and don’t meet standards for a new tenancy. Interesting to see – what do you think are the govt options to handle the “Housing Crisis” after all low priced rentals are removed from the market?

[Perry]

What do you think are the govt options to handle the “Housing Crisis” after all low priced rentals are removed from the market?

Already taken care of - the increase in the minimum wage will fix it.
That such a thing is inflationary, a two steps forward and three steps backward function, never occurs to the socialists.
Well . . . maybe it does.

They get to look good in the eyes of their voters
The tax take increases
Their voters blame businesses for their financial woes
Increased dependency on gummint handouts improves re-election chances.

Hhmmmm . . . . maybe the reds are smarter than I think?

[JBM]

We took in refugees last year as part of our attempt to give back. We had many local applicants that were worthy of the property. The property was a fully renovated property we'd just spent a lot of time and money renovating.

The refugees came with a certification from some govt department saying they've been trained on living in NZ so had an understanding of how things worked in NZ. The red cross gave them full support furnishing their house with things many of my other tenants couldn't afford to buy for themselves.

It took 6 weeks for them to destroy the place. The govt documents not worth the paper it's written on, the Red Cross support/backing useless.

AVOID taking in refugees at all cost. All the risk is yours, all the costs are yours.

Let the government house them.

How bad of damage ?? pretty disgusting allowed in too then take the piss ... deport time

[flyernzl]

Govt options?

Rent control.

[McDuck]

Govt options?

Rent control.

This is all very interesting from a practical point of view.

What your trying to do is steer human behavior.

It could be chimp behavior, or plant behavior ( yawn, maybe not plants, they take ages to do anything)..

Anyho, back to the point,

Laws are the backstop, the final place you go when the natural social control processes have failed.

Probably the best way to get good social behavior is to show it in the media constantly.

Want more babies, show lots of Huggies ads of quiet smiley babies.
Want people to accept tiny houses, show lots of small house building shows.
There's an old saying, "Monkey see, monkey do".

You might even be able to get someone elected as president of the United States, -
by having a TV show of him in control and running things in a ship shape fashion.

Or as a cowboy who is good to monkeys. ha .

I think one of the main problems New Zealand will face is with Icons.

To train monkey behavior, you have to use stories or parables with familiar icons.
Red riding hood, the big bad wolf, etc.

But what say the icons are a little waving cat or a boy with an elephant head?
and will the Icons of those cultures, be transposable into a European social structure.

and totally off on a time tangent, because I'm bored,
I did like the way the Romans did it, co-opting the iconography of the local people.
If course you have to be careful.
When you run the Egyptian empire, don't start believing your own hype, don't start thinking you are a god.
Which might be damn near impossible if everyone around you insists otherwise.

If anyone reading this finds themselves in this awkward situation, you can message me, and ill give you a reality check.
and..

You have to be true to the icon.
The white ghost spirits of the pacific peoples never got drunk and acted badly.
So when they did, a fake was revealed.
Not so good for the fake.
If you catch my drift.

Righto!

[Don't believe the Hype]

Quoted or not – Jonette made a fair point.

It's tolerated running everything at crisis level (defined by politicians and supported by the media).

Regarding housing, I’ve been driving since last year monthly 2000-3000km - same routes and monitor places of new build houses, unsold and empty since last year. Also landlords keeping rentals vacant not finding suitable tenants for renovated homes meeting govt standards. It looks to me like a social crisis for tenants who lost their home (because of extensive renovations, sold rentals, etc) and don’t meet standards for a new tenancy. Interesting to see – what do you think are the govt options to handle the “Housing Crisis” after all low priced rentals are removed from the market?

This is an interesting observation and one that back comments I've made in the past. The new housing standards remove the option for tenants to 'choose' the standard of accommodation that meets there budget or own standards. The government has mandated a minimum standard WITHOUT considering the weekly rental cost implication. In the past tenants could choose the level of comfort provided by their home based on a range of options and pay accordingly. Now the minimum standard is mandated and people just have to stump up the price.

It would be like the government mandating only BMW's or better are allowed on NZ roads as drivers deserve a minimum level of comfort. If you can't afford a BMW well I'm afraid you'll be catching the bus.

[AlFa]

It would be like the government mandating only BMW's or better are allowed on NZ roads as drivers deserve a minimum level of comfort. If you can't afford a BMW well I'm afraid you'll be catching the bus.

With just one minor detail - in some areas bus service doesn't exist and in some there's 1 40-seat bus per hour with 500 people at each bus station.
Now that's right comparison.

[Don't believe the Hype]

How bad of damage ?? pretty disgusting allowed in too then take the piss ... deport time

blocked up the upstairs toilet by using cut up t-shirts the redcross gave them at paper instead of buying a few rolls... blocked before the gully so backed up the pipe to the point of overflowing... didn't mention it to the PM... crap flowed freely and was walked through the house (new carpet 6 wks earlier).

They thought a good measure was to ladle (yep scoop up the crap) and pour it into the bath somehow the crap made it into the ceiling cavity between the upper and lower level causing the ceiling gib to bow under the weight/moisture. Their solution... stack furniture to hold up the ceiling... i kid you not.

Red Cross notified the PM on one of their visits... 6 weeks from full reno to $25k insurance job to fix.

Other things we noted when we did the reno for the second time - food marks on the high wall mounted heat pump installed 6 - 8 weeks earlier... they'd clearly been throwing food around inside the house.

This 'family' was a mother with 6 or so children... given a new opportunity in NZ to escape whatever persecution she faced in her home country... my guess she was running from some local landlords who wanted her sorted out because she'd trashed their houses.

[Perry]

"I presume that it's just a scenario that isn't going to happen," said Dhil Twitford



The crisis the Housing Minister created

A report yesterday of a woman, 86, moving because of a 73 percent rent hike illustrates the crisis created by Housing Minister Phil Twyford, Tenancies War spokesman Mike Butler said today.

This story of a property being sold with the new owner hiking rent from $150 a week to $260 provides evidence of the consequences of Mr Twyford's agenda that he refused to accept – that owners would sell and rents would rise.

The new owner said that the property needed work to be brought into line with the “healthy homes” standards, which was something he “supported”.

The new owner phrased his comment as if he had a choice, Mr Butler said.

In fact, rental property owners have no choice. They either comply with the standards that were imposed by regulation and include penalties of up to $200,000 for non-compliance, or sell, he said.

The out-going tenant did not say whether or not her flat was cold and damp, as the Minister alleged all rental properties were. Her only objection was the rent hike, Mr Butler said.

The property looks like a 1970s construction which may already comply with the 1978 insulation standard which achieves the greatest heat-loss prevention, he said.

The main justification for Mr Twyford's standards was to prevent the hospitalisation each year of 6000 children for housing-sensitive illnesses.

As a one-bedroom flat, the flat under discussion would be unsuitable for children; this illustrates the short-sightedness of setting requirements for 588,700 properties for the supposed benefit of 6000, Mr Butler said.

Mr Twyford has created a new housing crisis and now both owners and tenants are paying the price, Mr Butler said.

Stop the War on Tenancies is a group that since last October has been highlighting the evidence that successive governments have ignored while creating rental property policy.

---

Contact:
Mike Butler 27-277 7295
[email protected]

[McDuck]

Yea, you do need to manage change with delicacy and style.

Look at cars for example, everyone accepts that unsafe cars get taken off the roads and shouldn't pass a WOF.

But I doubt a model T ford would pass current safety standards.

Some houses are that old.

Just laying down a law without having a realistic plan of how it will be done is almost as irresponsible as letting the state of the housing stock fall into such disrepair.

[eri]

Exceptions for older vehicles

If your vehicle was manufactured before 1990 it may be excluded from many of the standards requirements.

However, your vehicle must still meet the general safety requirements in the Land Transport Rules,

and it must have at least front seat passenger safety belts if manufactured after 1955.

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/vehicle-types/vehicle-classes-and-standards/exceptions-to-the-standards/

ie model T would need to be as safe now as it was when it was built, brakes, steering, bodywork etc.

it wouldn't need; indicators, seat belts, anything more modern than it was built with

...

imho housing should be the same

if it was built to code, changing codes should not require expensive + impractical upgrades

the focus should be on increasing supply

what a waste of millions 100+ gov. inquiries have been!

and what a screw-up kiwi-build has become!

how can the coalition expect to get more done

when they remove targets and accountability?

[Chris W]

imho housing should be the same

if it was built to code, changing codes should not require expensive + impractical upgrades

Just out of interest, what would you do with houses built to code at the time of construction that are:

1) full of asbestos
2) constructed out of the same cladding materials as used in the Grenfell Tower in London
3) homes in NZ built to code in late 1990's / early 2000's that subsequently turned out to be leaky?

[eri]

^

to further use the car example

many cars end up having faults and defects...eg bad brake lines, dodgy airbags etc that were thought to be within the code of the time but turn out not to be

they get recalls etc. for the first 10 - 20? years

why not houses?

imho

using the building code as a "social engineering" tool

drives up prices and doesn't fix the people (alter negative behavior for the PC)

so is a lose - lose policy