Stephanie Worsop: Home ownership available to some, not all

Everyone who wants to own a home should have avenues to achieve that. Photo / File

OPINION

Ask anybody who has tried to get on to the property ladder in the past few years and they will tell you it was one of the most stressful times of their lives.

Competing with multiple offers on every property, the ever-increasing house values, the limited options coming on to the market.

When you're in the thick of it, the housing market seems like a volatile, dog-eat-dog world that delivers disappointment after disappointment.

But as soon as you get your foot in the door, suddenly all those things making the market so hostile become your best friends.

The low interest rates that are driving competition are helping you pay off your mortgage quicker and the capital gains you once despised are now eagerly anticipated as you watch your asset's worth reach unprecedented highs.

In today's paper, we ask property experts whether the housing market is becoming impossible for first-home buyers.

On the face of it, becoming a homeowner certainly seems harder now than it did 20 years ago.

But property experts are adamant it's always been hard buying a home - it's just the factors making it hard that have changed.

They make some good points, like the high interest rates and higher percentage of the average income needed to service a mortgage 20 years ago.

Take my parents as an example. They were teen parents and when they wanted to buy their first home in 2001, they were a single-income family with three kids under 9.

At the time, the thought of having so much debt terrified them, and having to drum up the $10,000 deposit needed was impossible as they were living week to week.

The bank wouldn't take a second look at them because they were a single-income family and the properties in their price range were far and few between.

They didn't have Kiwisaver to boost their deposit or any financial grants to help them into a home.

But what they did have was the rent-to-buy scheme and through that my parents were able to buy an old army house in Papakura for $185,000.

Nowadays, potential buyers have Kiwisaver to lean on and the first-home grant, and interest rates haven't been above 5 per cent in years.

But the assistance available today is only helpful to people like my husband and I, a two-income family with two Kiwisavers, some savings and good credit scores.

It doesn't actually help people who are in the same position as my parents were 20 years ago.

And therein lies the problem. The housing market is out of reach for most single-income, low socio-economic families. Families who don't have Kiwisaver and are living week to week.

Something as basic as housing shouldn't be impossible for any family. Perhaps bringing back a rent-to-buy scheme is the best way to rectify this inequality before it gets worse.