There’s an art to visiting open homes. Rebecca Stevenson looks behind ‘the vibe’ and smell of baking as she searches for a new house. I’m not exactly in the market for a new home, but I am in the market for open homes. Let me explain. We own our home. Our home is a dump … Read more
New Zealand Geographic editor Rebekah White examines the public spaces that connect us. Our towns and cities are lacking something important, and I was reminded of this during a recent visit to Hong Kong. There, senior citizens fill the social niche that teenagers do in Auckland. They loiter in the local square with their mates, … Read more
If New Zealand is to crack the problems of unaffordable housing, the government must look seriously at how the better parts of America finance infrastructure, argues Eric Crampton, This seems about the worst possible month to be suggesting that anybody should try to emulate anything going on in America. The place seems to be going … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: ASB data paints very different foreign buyer picture, fuel tax passes into law, and a battle is brewing on the West Coast over grazing rights on heritage land. ASB has come out with significantly higher rates of houses being bought by foreign owners, in a recently released … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Phil Twyford talks up prefab housing industry, massive alleged money laundering scheme uncovered, and all the latest in strike news. Housing minister Phil Twyford is looking to prefab housing to make the Kiwibuild plan possible. Under the Kiwibuild plan, Labour has promised 100,000 homes over ten years. … Read more
Auckland’s golf courses are huge tracts of heavily subsidised land lying vacant in the middle of a housing crisis. We need to seize them all back, argues Hayden Donnell. Some of the proposals to fix Auckland’s housing crisis are debatable. Jailing all Boomers. Seizing Howick under the Public Works Act. Permanently exiling the land banking … Read more
Phil Twyford called meth use a “health issue” this morning, and said his Housing NZ would not make people homeless. Good words and true. So why is his government still locking addicts up? A few hours ago, Morning Report’s Guyon Espiner conducted an interview with housing minister Phil Twyford which was both mundane and extraordinary, … Read more
Phil Goff’s 10-year ‘build it’ budget finally got the green light on Thursday, with one of the provisions being that the infamous ‘bed tax’ is now set to be extended to homes listed on sites like Airbnb. What does this mean for hosts? And are other regions set to follow? (PLUS, other things you should … Read more
We will also test Housing NZ properties for traces of students, pets and bad vibes, reveals our proud CEO (Boiler Suits Division) Alex Braae The report into the pointlessness of testing houses for meth contamination has come at a very bad time for The Spinoff. All those stories about how if one hit was taken … Read more
How will the government’s Kiwibuild plans in Mt Albert look once they’re fully built? Urban designer Matthew Prasad casts a critical eye over the project. It’s only been a week since the government’s first Kiwibuild development announcement, and there has been a lot of talk and hypothesising about what form the development may take at … Read more
An old cigarette factory in Masterton, a remnant from the Think Big era, has been re-purposed to tackle our affordable housing crisis. Rebecca Stevenson caught up with builder Mike Fox to find out how a plant in the Wairarapa is producing modular, kitset homes on the cheap. Houses in New Zealand are not expensive only … Read more
As Housing NZ prepares to develop the corner near Russell Brown’s house in Point Chevalier, he muses on the redevelopment, gentrification and spiralling growth in real estate values of the Auckland suburb he calls home. Last week, I wandered around the corner to watch the news crews assemble outside Jacinda Ardern’s Point Chevalier home in … Read more
The new government is aiming to build 100,000 new affordable homes – likely to be off-plan apartments and townhouses – in the next decade. But today’s designers and builders are already working flat tack. So what’s the fix? The answer lies with technology, writes two Auckland architects. Even after squinting carefully at the floor plan, … Read more
As New Zealand faces pressure to cool its overheated housing market, top-earning Airbnb hosts in two of our hardest-squeezed cities are raking in million-dollar fortunes. Talia Shadwell investigates. In tourist playground Queenstown, one Airbnb host made $2.9 million in the year to October accommodating short-term stays across 19 properties, according to new figures from research … Read more
The new coalition government has made a start on addressing the housing crisis with the just-announced independent housing review. But Jenny McArthur warns that Labour’s proposed KiwiBuild policy could risk adopting solutions that actually fuel the problems they claim to solve, reinforcing inequality for decades to come. After years of futile policy interventions, it’s time … Read more
There’s a lot of trouble in Auckland right now. Homelessness is growing. Many mostly-young or poor people are facing the prospect of never owning a home in the city. But this week the media has highlighted the plight of another group of Aucklanders who are doing it tough: people whose houses are making too much … Read more
Does your house earn more than you do? For almost every Aucklander the answer is yes. So, asks Don Rowe, what sort of job would you need to do if you wanted to earn as much as the home you live in? With the new property valuation figures released today by Auckland Council, we now … Read more
New plans for transport and housing, sure, but the government’s coalition and support deals promise much more for Auckland than that. As Simon Wilson reports, there’s even a big win for Metiria Turei. Arise the other Phil: we have a new Mr Auckland Rumours the new government is going to change the name of Auckland … Read more
Is Auckland in crisis over transport, housing, schools, you name it, or are we heading in the right direction? The answer, says Simon Wilson, is yes. The city voted both ways. Here’s what it really needs from the new government. We are two cities living as one, and each of those cities sees the place … Read more
The Human Rights Commission’s David Rutherford argues that people shouldn’t have to live in houses contaminated by methamphetamine – but they shouldn’t have to live in houses that are damp and mouldy either. Black mould. It’s become almost a rite of passage for renting in New Zealand – if you haven’t lived in a house … Read more
Can families live in tiny houses without driving each other mad? Carole Payton talks to a mum who lives in a 15 square-metre home with her family of four to find out what it’s really like to live tiny. The popularity of ‘tiny houses’ keeps growing. All over social media teeny palaces of perfect proportions … Read more
So much of the New Zealand economy appears to be doing well. Tourism numbers are astonishing, Kiwis are coming home in their droves alongside new migrants, many of whom are young. But Rebecca Stevenson finds the Kiwi property market is always looming behind the sunshine. Do all roads in New Zealand lead to housing? Probably. … Read more
For years little data existed on the mythical first home buyer and how much of the housing market they occupied, so CoreLogic NZ started tracking “buyer classification”. Nick Goodall, head of research at CoreLogic, says despite market and regulatory changes, first home buyers are holding on. New Zealand has a vivid image of the “first … Read more
Everything conspires against affordable housing: the regulations, the cost of building and most of all the market. But all that can be fixed. AUT construction professor John Tookey explains how. Housing in New Zealand is in trouble in so many ways. Quality, cost and sustainability all have roles in the discourse. But the critical issue, … Read more
Wellington recently introduced a voluntary Rental Warrant of Fitness. Mayor Justin Lester explains the scheme, and why the rest of New Zealand should follow the city’s lead. Like much of New Zealand, Wellington has a good opportunity to improve the quality of our housing stock. For a city that sees the occasional gentle breeze, we … Read more
Bill Cashmore, deputy mayor of Auckland, tells Simon Wilson why he loves working with the government and why he has such high hopes our problems will all be fixed. Bill Cashmore gets up at 4am so you don’t have to. It takes him an hour to drive to work and he’s there before six. Cashmore … Read more
Buildings in Wellington that once housed almost 150 people have lain empty for five years, even as an intensifying housing crisis has rendered 40,000 Kiwis homeless – including hundreds of Wellingtonians. How did it happen? Marc Daalder explains. In 1959, as construction of The Terrace Flats in Wellington neared completion, the building’s architect died. His … Read more
Apparently Jacinda and Metiria weren’t the only ones making political news this week. Simon Wilson has five things to say about some of the transport and housing bullshit that went down this week. 1. The Auckland roads lobby cooks the numbers Did you see that “Auckland traffic ‘pouring $1.9 billion down the drain’” front page of the … Read more
Those who got a foot on Auckland’s property ladder in the nick of time have reaped the benefits since 2008. But has anything improved for the growing number of long-term renters? Kate Newton reports, as part of RNZ’s series Is this the Brighter Future?, which examines the government’s record since 2008. Gareth Shute remembers the … Read more