Home affordability in city on a par with Auckland
More than two thirds of rental households are not able to comfortably afford typical rents in either Nelson or Tasman, according to a recent report.
The quarterly report on urban development capacity, delivered to the Nelson City Council planning and regulatory committee on Thursday, showed a general increase in house prices and residential rent in the Nelson-Tasman region.
Housing affordability in Nelson is now on par with Auckland and Hamilton.
House prices are showing signs of potentially flattening off, though affordability is still decreasing. The last year saw affordability decrease by just over 7 per cent, compared to the previous years’ 20 per cent decrease.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment found that the ‘‘majority’’ of rental households could not comfortably afford to buy a home in the ‘‘typical first-home price bracket’’.
Two thirds of of rental households were also unable to comfortably afford typical rents in either Nelson or Tasman.
This puts rental affordability in Nelson at a level worse than Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland, though rental affordability has been improving since 2014.
Using an affordability measure of how much residual income would be left after housing expenses, 81 per cent of people renting in Nelson were unable to comfortably afford to buy a first home in the area they rented in. This is an improvement of just 7 per cent from the lowest point, in 2007 and 2008.
The affordability of housing in the Nelson-Tasman region is now at a similar level to Auckland, with the combined Nelson, Tasman, and Marlborough region being the third least affordable area, behind Central Otago and Auckland.
Population growth in Nelson is currently outstripping house supply. The council granted resource consent for over 450 new residential properties in the six months to December 2017, almost double the previous six months.