Housing crisis solved!

Written By: - Date published: 4:10 pm, April 22nd, 2016 - 26 comments
Categories: housing, Satire - Tags: , , ,

Good news everyone – the housing crisis is solved! As reported in The Herald:

Home truths: ‘Ditch the Sky and start saving’

Many house hunters who say they can’t afford to buy a home in Auckland need to give up their Sky TV or expensive cars and just save harder, says a mortgage broker.

John Bolton, chief executive and founder of Squirrel Home Loans, said many people were on good incomes but refused to give up on the latest and flashiest possessions in order to save for their first home.

Just give up Sky! It’s so simple!

Ok there’s one small glitch. Given the monthly saving from axing Sky, Matt Nippert points out that it will take you 70 years to save a 100k deposit. Which does seem like a long time to impatient young people.

But I have found the answer! Just give up Sky 70 times, and you have the deposit in a single year! It’s so genius I can’t believe that no one has suggested this before!


Serious responses to the nonsense: Drop Sky? That won’t get me a house

And…

https://twitter.com/DavidSlack/status/723330477034074112

https://twitter.com/mfyfyr/status/723325728851300352

https://twitter.com/shaxhuxmo/status/723282367180230656

26 comments on “Housing crisis solved! ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Anno1701 1
    22 April 2016 at 4:15 pm

    Me too ! See below for instructions

  2. Heather Grimwood 2
    22 April 2016 at 4:27 pm

    Bolton is only commenting on those very privileged folk who indulge in surrounding themselves with status symbols. Obviously they can afford to rent, and presumably reasonable accommodation, otherwise the effect of the accoutrements is negated.
    His concern should be for those much lower on income ladder whose outlook is indeed bleak.

  3. Colonial Viper 3
    22 April 2016 at 4:29 pm

    There’s no reasoning with the oligarchy, which suggests why the French thought it necessary to invent the guillotine.

    • adam 3.1
      22 April 2016 at 4:35 pm

      Toki Pou Tangata 😉

    • Craig H 3.2
      22 April 2016 at 6:15 pm

      The guillotine predated Dr Guillotin by centuries – the Maiden was a very similar device used in Scotland in the 16th century, for example (but I take your point).

    • Scythe 3.3
      22 April 2016 at 7:26 pm

      So edgy[deleted]. Given how emotionally you react to insignificant comments like this I doubt you’d have the stomach for it.

      [Good-bye. When you come back, you want to engage your brain before commenting? Looked through your history and it’s a woeful catalogue of arse smear] – Bill

      • Colonial Viper 3.3.1
        22 April 2016 at 7:31 pm

        Hey dickhead, if you want to address me use my handle on The Standard, Colonial Viper, or CV.

  4. weka 4
    22 April 2016 at 4:56 pm

    I don’t agree with tha basic premise but the article does raise an important point about consumer good finance. NZ has a much higher degree of personal debt than previously (thanks neoliberalism). And we are arguably a much more consumer culture. Boulton is probably right about his client base. How many people would give up what things to buy a house? Won’t solve the Auckland problem though because most people just don’t have the income for those prices no matter how hard they save.

    • Colonial Viper 4.1
      22 April 2016 at 5:44 pm

      Would that dick chop back his comfortable profit margins in order to make mortgages more affordable for his clients? I am guessing, no.

      • weka 4.1.1
        22 April 2016 at 6:09 pm

        Lol, I’m guessing no too, but even if he did I doubt it would make much difference to the Auckland housing crisis. A few more well off people could buy, but most people in housing need are still not going to be able to afford a house at a decent % of their income (rent or mortgage).

      • Lanthanide 4.1.2
        22 April 2016 at 8:38 pm

        Mortgage brokers are paid by the banks.

        If you go to a mortgage broker, you may get a lower interest rate than if you go to the bank yourself. But you pay $0 – it all comes from the banks.

        In other words, everyone is subsidising mortgage brokers.

  5. Stuart Munro 5
    22 April 2016 at 5:07 pm

    Although Pliny the Elder evidently preferred calf skins, I have it on good authority that the hide of an unsuccessful housing minister, flayed and stretched very thin before being carefully tanned can be made into a very passable tent.

  6. Lanthanide 6
    22 April 2016 at 5:51 pm

    There was an article on interest.co.nz a few weeks ago about a young professional couple whining they couldn’t afford to buy a house in Auckland. The columnist pointed out that they were renting a house in a posh suburb, and really hadn’t cut out all of the expenses that they could have. And if they did that, and saved and sacrificed their lifestyle for 3-4 years, they would be able to buy a house in a cheaper part of Auckland. But it seems that the couple wanted to live in a flash place and potentially even buy such a place themselves, without having to adjust their lifestyle.

    So this sort of delusion does happen. But what Bolton’s talking about probably would only apply to 10% of people trying to get into the Auckland housing market.

    • Graeme 6.1
      22 April 2016 at 6:16 pm

      I did some work for our local housing trust a few years ago. They build medium density unit that they sell to first home owner in a captive / restricted market model.

      I was struck that a lot of the new owners needed a double garage to house their outdoor toys, value of which would have made a good contribution to their deposit. But I suppose adjustments will be made once they have to meet the mortgage payment every month.

      The bottle of bubbly on the kitchen bench, courtesy of the trust, on possession seemed a bit out of context too.

  7. Paul 7
    22 April 2016 at 6:14 pm

    Kirsty Johnston is an investigations reporter at the New Zealand Herald. She lives in Auckland and wants a home to call her own.

    ‘This morning I read advice from a mortgage broker which said house hunters just need to give up their Sky TV or expensive cars and they’ll have a first home in no time.
    It enraged me. I am one of those house hunters. And let me tell you right now, it’s not the Sky subscription that’s the problem.
    Between us, my boyfriend and I earn about $110,000 a year. We have good jobs, and some savings, and could probably scrape enough together using our Kiwisaver accounts to pay for a deposit on, say, a $400,000 home.
    The mortgage repayments would actually be less than the $450 per week we pay in rent.’

    Read on…..

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11626989

  8. Et Tu Brute 8
    22 April 2016 at 6:23 pm

    I’d hate to criticize your numbers but with compound interest it would only take 58 years not 70 to save up for a house.

    *figures based on conservative estimates but are estimates only.

    • dave 8.1
      22 April 2016 at 6:42 pm

      what i don’t get is why anyone would want to buy in a market when homes are 10 times the average income yeah they buy a home the mortgage repayment leave no buffer no margin for that CEO of bastards inc Murphy and can just be afforded only if interest rates stay at record lows whats going on
      in housing is going to end in a lot tears for a lot of people

  10. Tony P 10
    22 April 2016 at 10:14 pm

    Not sure if this has been posted before but it is an overseas view/response to similar opinion pieces. Well written.
    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/21/linda-tirado-poverty-hand-to-mouth-extract

  11. jcuknz 11
    23 April 2016 at 7:53 am

    It might be to the point to ask prospective MPs if they own either their home or second/third properties…..if they were culled from the House we could see some progress but until then…. self interest rules.

  12. DH 12
    23 April 2016 at 8:58 am

    Just a note….

    It’s the deposit inflation that’s killing people the most, not the actual house price per se.

    A person who began saving for a house eight years ago has seen the required deposit increase by upwards of 400%.

    Further burdening the aspiring first home buyer is low interest rates reducing the compound effect on savings and rents increasing more than wages.

    When one considers that buying a first home was always difficult for the lower income earners it shouldn’t be difficult to work out that many people have been callously condemned by this venal National Party to lining the pockets of property ‘investors’.

  13. Lloyd 13
    23 April 2016 at 9:27 pm

    The Reserve Bank has used the size of the deposit on a house as a tool to stop house sales and reduce inflation.
    The pity is that one group of people need a house for their health and survival, while another group need the house only as an investment using the rent to pay the mortgage and making a large capital gain when they sell the house, and the same rules are placed on both groups.
    If we were taxing capital gain with a bias towards supporting first home buyers and taxing housing “investors” heavily, then maybe the “investors” would go and play their capitalist games somewhere else and maybe the Reserve Bank would find the dangers of inflation from the house market would reduce….

  14. Richard McGrath 14
    27 April 2016 at 4:59 pm

    Why not:
    1) Get out of Auckland, and/or
    2) Build a Tiny Home: http://thetinylife.com/new-zealand-tiny-house/

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.