A community housing leader says there’s no immediate solution to New Zealand’s falling rate of home ownership – but alternative pathways to ownership could help.
A new report, authored by Deloitte and commissioned by Westpac, shows New Zealand’s home ownership rate has dropped below 60% — the lowest level since 1945.
Since the 1990s, the rate of home ownership has dropped by more than 15% — and it’s forecast to drop another 10% by 2048, according to the report.
Chris Glaudel, deputy CEO of Community Housing Aotearoa, told Breakfast this morning: “I wish I could say I was surprised.
“This is a long-term trend, this decline in home ownership rates.
“I think what’s especially worrying is that Māori and Pacific households have even lower rates.”
He later added: “There is no magic wand that’s going to change that trajectory in home ownership rate overnight.
“I think that view of the pavlova paradise, the quarter-acre section and a home, is still deeply culturally ingrained and I believe that New Zealanders do want to see households having that opportunity for home ownership.”
From the 1950s to the 1980s, political parties competed in support of home ownership with policies resulting in “very high” home ownership rates during that time, he said.
“We really started to slide in the early ’90s,” Glaudel continued.
“Some of the things that have changed have been that lack of investment, [there’s] also been I think a change in mindset and homes [are] increasingly viewed as investment assets, rather than as a place to live and to raise a family.”
Community housing providers offer a “vital” bridge into home ownership for low- and medium-income households, he said.
“I think we’ve allowed our housing market to become so ‘financialised’ that, at least for a period of probably a couple of decades, we’re going to need to look at these alternative tenure pathways.”