Published in The New Zealand Herald (Auckland), 29 November 2015
By Phil Twyford and Oliver Hartwich
There is a great deal of debate on the causes and solutions of the housing crisis but little disagreement that the problems we face are enormous:
- The number of new homes consented dropped from a record 39,800 in 1973 to a little over 24,700 last year. Over the same period, New Zealand’s population grew by 50 per cent.
- Expressed differently, the 1960s and 1970s often saw between 8 and 13 residential buildings consented per 1000 population. Since the beginning of the century, the average rate has been a meagre 5.3.
- This undersupply of housing is most extreme in Auckland, where house prices now increase at an annual rate of more than 25 per cent.
- House prices are now equal to 9 times household incomes, making Auckland “severely unaffordable” in Demographia’s International Housing Affordability Survey…
View original post 921 more words
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments