It feels like a chance to win the lottery.
This month, two of New Zealand’s top real estate listing platforms are offering prizes. Realestate.co.nz is giving away $100,000 to “one lucky Kiwi” to put towards their home deposit. Similarly, Trade Me Property released its Hunt for the Hundy campaign – which also offers $100k in prize money – listing national landmarks which you add to your watchlist and then enter the draw.
It’s like a game of Monopoly fused with a scavenger hunt, all fun and games until someone loses and flips the board in a huff. For some it may just be an opportunity to add to their savings, but for a number of people, like myself, it may be the only realistic pathway to buying a house in central Auckland.
As I spend my time hunting for the hundy, Kiwis have been patiently waiting to hear the outcome of the coalition negotiations to form our next government. Election day feels like a distant memory and Winston Peters seems to be playing his own game with PM-elect Christopher Luxon and David Seymour, negotiating unknown policy details behind closed doors.
A couple of days after the final election results were announced on November 3, 1News reported the average Auckland house price deposit is predicted to be $1 million by 2045. It’s a terrifying prospect – the dream of homeownership is becoming a moving target.
I am one half of a DINK couple (double income, no kids). Together, we earn more than the average household in Auckland, yet getting our foot in the door of the property market is far beyond our means. Last month, Opes Partners reported the median Auckland house price was $1,040,000, down 3.6% on October 2022. It sounds positive but as someone who now counts scrolling through property listings as a pastime, the outlook is bleak.
I’m in a fortunate position compared with many, and it’s saddening to think of the wealth gap that will continue to rise over the coming decades unless the government steps in with realistic and affordable policy outcomes.
As a prospective first-home buyer, one of my main concerns about the incoming government is its housing policies. To be fair, Luxon inherited a housing crisis but so did Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government. Unfortunately for the latter, its KiwiBuild scheme was met with criticism and, for all sorts of reasons, failed to deliver.
In this year’s election, major and minor government parties sought votes through policies that focused on the reality of the cost-of-living crisis. Terms including “bread and butter issues” and the “squeezed middle” became like bingo tiles in pre-election political debates. No one was terribly shocked to hear both Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon were in their early 20s when they bought their first homes. If only I had been born 30 years earlier…
National campaigned on a controversial plan to allow foreign buyers to buy a NZ home as long as the price tag was over $2 million and they were willing to pay 15% tax on that. The party’s housing policies focused on developing housing density along transport corridors and greenfield land on our city fringes. This all sounds well and good but developing greenfield sites should be considered with a climate lens, as food production will be pushed further away from cities and green spaces replaced with roading and infrastructure.
But my key concern with National’s foreign buyer plan is that, in central Auckland, a $2 million-plus home is incredibly common. A quick search on Trade Me gives me more than 500 results and anything slightly lower would likely be able to have value added to it to reach the mark.
If National’s maths add up, and they find foreign buyers to purchase these homes, some simple high school economics would show that with more demand, these prices will continue to rise and home ownership for anyone like me will become further out of reach. Right now, we simply do not have enough houses to gamble the financial futures of younger generations on.
From Gore’s giant trout to Ohakune’s standout carrot, it feels like Trade Me is suggesting alternatives to Auckland’s outrageous property market. We could leave, head south for the capital or find peace and quiet in the regions, but job opportunities (for now at least) are keeping us here.
So, what are our other options? Look elsewhere? House prices in west and south Auckland are more affordable but we worry about our carbon footprint while chewing through petrol. A tiny home on a plot of land? Sounds plausible but finding somewhere within a justifiable commuting distance is a struggle in itself. Plead with the bank of Mum and Dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles? According to Consumer NZ research, the “Bank of Mum and Dad” now ranks fifth for owner-occupier loans.
That’s not surprising, given it feels like the only way for those fortunate enough to have this option. Yet, with the current inflation and interest rates, these generations have become cautious too. So, right now, with our incoming government tied up with coalition negotiations, it feels like winning a competition run by a property listing platform could be the only realistic pathway into home ownership.
Wish me luck.
