Cooking the Books podcast: Could changing KiwiSaver make home ownership easier?

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's the upcoming KiwiSaver changes you can have a say in. Hosted by Frances Cook.

A milestone of looking after your money in New Zealand is to buy a home, and pay it off.

That's because our system, and especially the pension, is designed with home ownership in mind.

Pension payments depend on what you're entitled to, but if you're single you get about $20,000 a year, and if you're in a couple, you get about $30,000 a year.

That doesn't leave much room for paying off a mortgage, or even continuing to rent.

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That's why it's worrying that stats from the Commission for Financial Capability show that the numbers of people going into retirement still paying a mortgage or rent, are increasing.

But there is a suggestion on how to fix this.

KiwiSaver is often the first stop for those who want to save for a house, as the candy-coated retirement scheme seriously boosts your savings.

There are currently strict rules about when you can withdraw money for a home - so the question is, should those rules change?

For the latest Cooking the Books podcast I spoke to interim Retirement Commissioner Peter Cordtz.

We discussed whether home ownership is going down, the proposed changes to KiwiSaver, and how you can have a say.

For the interview, watch the video podcast above.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on iHeartRadio, Apple podcasts app, or Spotify, to make sure you never miss an episode.