The government has announced a new response to the housing crisis: 600 new "affordable" homes in its Hobsonville Point development. But when you look at the actual prices, they're not that affordable:
Under the inflation-indexed targets, of all homes built at Hobsonville Point:Housing Minister Phil Heatley thinks that these prices are "affordable in the Auckland context". Bullshit. According to Kiwibank's calculator, payments on a $485,000 house, assuming a 20% deposit, are over $1,100 a fortnight. Which is about the same as the median pre-tax income ($560 a week), and almost 70% of the median pre-tax income of wage and salary earners ($806 a week). And that's at historic low rates, and assuming that people have almost $100,000 to put down to start with; if they don't, its even worse.
- 10 per cent will be sold for less than $400,000
- a further 10 per cent will be priced between $400,000 and $485,000.
Basically, these "affordable" houses are completely unaffordable to the vast majority of New Zealanders. They're houses for the rich. And they will do nothing to solve our housing crisis.
