The home affordability challenge

New Zealand’s crippling home affordability rates cannot be fixed by a single solution such as changing immigration policy or urban planning rules, or imposing a capital gains tax or lending ratios. The report explains that New Zealand’s obsession with home ownership is one of the key reasons that it took so long for New Zealand’s economy to recover after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. “Our reliance on future capital gains to pay for debt-funded spending caused a long hangover when households realised they needed to pay off the mortgage.”