Many Kiwis are scrambling for keys to own castle
"A new report from Statistics Nzsaid house prices during the middle of this year were roughly 11.5 times higher than the median household income."
My friend has been trying for months to scramble on to the property ladder. Between savings, the bank and borrowing from friends and family, she has stitched together a patchwork of funding that would allow her to buy a $650,000 home.
She needs three bedrooms for her family and a boarder, who would help pay the mortgage.
Another friend who works in real estate recounted how two members of the same family recently visited the Bay from Auckland, where they owned homes, to buy a couple rental properties in Papamoa for $700,000 each. They plan to charge $650 per week for rent.
Home ownership in New Zealand has hit its lowest point in 70 years.
Just 64.5 per cent of Kiwis own their home, and nearly one in three rent.
A new report from Statistics NZ said house prices during the middle of this year were roughly 11.5 times higher than the median household income.
Tauranga’s median house price is $810,000, and Rotorua’s median house price is $580,000 according to figures out late last month from the Real Estate Institute.
Experts say solving the housing
crisis, which has developed over decades, requires amulti-pronged approach.
Among ideas being floated or inprocess: cutting regulations to allow faster housing development; rent-to-own schemes; increasing loan to value requirements and extending the bright-line test - which taxes properties if they are sold within five years of purchase.
The Labour Government previously ruled out an extension of the bright-line test and has also shot down instituting a capital gains tax (CGT).
Ruling out a CGT is amistake that can be undone.
The current situation encourages buying, even hoarding, of investment properties and land.
Our post-lockdown environment has become a Fomo-saturated real estate feeding frenzy, thanks to low interest rates and a longstanding Kiwi obsession with property.
Why should the Government, by ruling out a CGT, encourage more New Zealanders to buy up homes when so many people can’t get a toe on the ladder?
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub told RNZ earlier this month tax policy would not be the single answer to the housing crisis.
“It is not a panacea but it is one part of the solution - and in my view a relatively small part of the housing crisis, but a big part of fairness in the tax system.”
People fretting about where to grow tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of idle dollars have options beyond bricks and mortar.
I know one man who, after selling the family home, decided to rent a house for his family and stash money in stocks to simplify his life.
He told me he had made an 8 per cent return in the share market the past year. I thought his figure was high, so I checked with Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craig’s Investment Partners.
He said the NZX All Gross index – which measures all companies on the NZ sharemarket – has delivered a return of 16.2 per cent per annum over the past five years.
I was right to not believe my friend - the share market actually delivered twice the return he mentioned.
Meanwhile, property investors in the Bay of Plenty are making an average rental yield of around 4 per cent, according to interest.co.nz.
It’s a lot of work for relatively modest gains.
Even if you add capital gains to the overall return on property, historic data shows you would have made more money investing in shares.
Factor in paying for rates, maintenance and renovations, and buying property looks far less lucrative than buying slices of Kiwi companies.
Lister said New Zealanders may have been scared off shares following the global financial crisis, when the NZ share market fell nearly 45 per cent from May 2007 to March 2009.
We also saw a nearly 30 per cent drop this past February and March.
Lister said overall, shares provide better long-term returns than virtually all other asset classes. ”... but in exchange for that better return you must be willing to tolerate bigger ups and downs along the way”.
Maybe there’s amisconception that investing in companies is difficult, or only for the super-rich.
Many of us already own shares, thanks to Kiwisaver.
Outside the plan, people can buy shares with very small amounts of money, using managed and exchange-traded funds (ETFS) which can provide simple ways to invest in multiple companies and bonds.
Perception is probably the biggest barrier to investing, according to Lister.
“Shares still suffer from memories of the 87 crash, which put an entire generation off. I think that is something which helped fuel our love affair with property, which is seen as safer and more stable.”
I did not ask Lister for his opinion about instituting a capital gains tax on investment properties, seeking only his expertise about making money in shares.
My view, and that of many other people who, unlike me, are experts in economics, is it’s unfair to allow investors to enrich themselves, capital gains tax-free, especially during a housing crisis.
Meanwhile, the only keys to the castle many Kiwis will ever hold belong to someone else.