Boomers worry about housing ladder
Baby boomers are concerned that younger New Zealanders cannot afford their first home.
Research by Canstar found 63 per cent of baby boomers worried about younger generations getting on the housing ladder, while only 51 per cent of Generation Y worried about it.
Baby boomers were also concerned about the housing shortage, with 65 per cent wanting more houses to be built.
Bank of New Zealand chief economist Tony Alexander said the survey proved older New Zealanders did not want the housing market to be unaffordable.
‘‘Baby boomers are used to an environment where housing supply grew very strongly in the 1970s, then for a while in the 1990s. So they’ll be attuned to thinking more houses keep prices suppressed,’’ he said.
Alexander said blaming others for unaffordable housing was an age-old attempt to explain the unexplainable.
‘‘People always hope there is some sort of magic bullet that can deliver housing affordability, but there isn’t one … With property market growth we say ‘These prices can’t continue – it’s a bubble, it’s a bubble.’ Then around the same time, it’s the Chinese – they’re the problem,’’ he said.
‘‘Then it must be a shortage of land, and then two or three years ago, it’s the baby boomers. We gravitate towards easy answers.’’
The survey of more than 2500 people also found 51 per cent of boomers and 42 per cent of Generation Y wanted a more robust tax structure for taxing investment properties.
Canstar general manager Jose George said: ‘‘This survey shows that this is not simply an Auckland-centric problem and we shouldn’t think that reducing or scrapping loan-to-value ratio restrictions for first time buyers offers a silver bullet.
‘‘What is also interesting was the attitude towards property and tax, with a more robust structure around tax and investment properties being by far the most popular option even amongst the generations who are more likely to own investment properties.’’
Younger generations felt more strongly about property only being available to New Zealand residents.