Overseas property news - New zealand 'affordability' shock

New zealand 'affordability' shock

A new survey has revealed that New Zealand has no ‘affordable’ housing markets…

According to the 2008 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, which examined the housing affordability situation of 227 urban markets, New Zealand is the second most unaffordable market in the English-speaking world.

New Zealand is the only surveyed nation in which all of its markets are ‘severely unaffordable’. Tauranga (7.5) is the least affordable, while Dunedin (5.4) is the best out of an expensive bunch.

Playing with peoples’ lives

Demographia rated the urban markets by the ‘median multiple’ method, where the median house price of a market is divided by the median annual household income and is the method recommended by the UN and the World Bank.

The firm said that countries where property is worth less than 3 times the annual salary is judged ‘affordable’; three to four times ‘moderately unaffordable’; four to five times ‘seriously unaffordable’ and property over five times the annual household income as ‘severely unaffordable’.

Co-author of the Annual Survey Hugh Pavletich said: “Evidence of the housing affordability crisis is clear, overwhelming and irrefutable.  Governments must allow affordable housing to be built on their urban fringes, and they must stop playing games with young people’s lives”.


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