Dear Jacinda, we have to talk about housing

OPINION: Dear Jacinda,

All I want for Christmas is a solid assurance that something, anything, is being done to ensure that house prices do not double by the next election.

I know you have a lot on your plate, but housing is not a vegetable that we can push, so it seems that it has been eaten, when in reality it has only been hidden behind some Covid management potatoes.

Median house prices in New Zealand hit a new record of $ 725,000 in October, up 20 percent from the previous year, and Westpac economists expect another 15 percent rise in the next. The median price in Auckland flipped over $ 1 million and about a quarter of all homes sold in the month sold for over $ 1 million.

I speak for a generation of millennials who are aging rapidly and defeated when I say, ouch!

READ MORE:
* What is reasonable? Tenant Faces $ 50 / Week Increase As Rents Increase
* If you want to fix the house, Labor must come out of its defensive position
* Median house price in Auckland surpasses $ 1 million as house prices accelerate 20%
* The Labor Party promised a lot on housing, but has it delivered?
* KiwiBuild: the solution that occurs to you when you don’t want to solve the problem

We agree with you: “You just can’t keep increasing at the rate you are at.”

What we are eagerly waiting to hear is what exactly will be done to stop the runaway train.

Economist Shamubeel Eaqub described Labor and National’s housing solutions as “pretty vanilla.”

“We need to have a greater supply of housing aimed at people who rent. Neither party is really [doing that],” he said.

To me, it seems that the heart of our problem (beyond the basic details of the RMA and the cost of construction supplies) is the way New Zealand, as a society, views housing.

We treat houses first as a commodity, secondly as a basic necessity for life.

That ranking of priorities underpins everything. Just look at the discussion about Healthy Homes standards, which National gleefully pointed to as a major factor behind the rent increases. Concerns about new standards reducing rental earnings received as much airtime, if not longer, than concerns of tenants getting sick from black mold on properties.

Only among us socialist friends, can we admit that the values ​​are backwards? So backwards, in fact, that modifying the loan game so that more people can get a piece on the board doesn’t seem like enough. The rules need a complete rewrite.

Because no matter where you sit on the political spectrum, you can’t beat the people who bought a house, any house, ten years ago. You have to join them. You have to skimp and save a deposit by whatever means necessary, go into debt to the extreme on something like a tiny (townhouse) house, and then trust that house prices keep going crazy so you can take all your nontaxable profit and leverage into something bigger.

The entire system relies on the next group of first-time buyers being willing and able to pay more than the last to hold onto the first rung of the pyramid-shaped ladder, despite spending more than a third of the average household salary a young professional. for rent.

For lack of a smarter answer, it’s a hit.

The cries for help you hear from all middle-class Pākehā childless twentysomethings like me are the tip of the iceberg. I feel incredibly privileged to have parents who own their own home. If everything else in my life really failed, I could take a flight to Wellington and hide in Mom’s guest room until I fixed my shit.

I have a safety net.

Many, many people don’t.

I write about houses and real estate every day, and I don’t know what the answer is. But, with all due respect, that’s not my job. My job is to write the headlines that tell the third of New Zealanders who rent that while they are doing their best to ride the roller coaster and save enough dollars, homeownership becomes an increasingly difficult dream to do. achieve each week.

Young Labor voters accepted the KiwiBuild dream and got a measly 600 out of the 100,000 homes promised.

All we can do is sit desperately and watch the first rung rise further and further out of reach, all the while telling us that it is our responsibility to find a way to jump better than previous generations had to, or go to. beg the bank from mom and dad.

The average New Zealander is not and will not be a millionaire. A basic necessity in life shouldn’t be priced in a millionaire’s budget. We can all agree on that.

Investors are not the problem. First-time home buyers are not the problem. A system that ensures that property always makes more money than people is the problem.

How do we fix that?