Housing affordability

Stuff reports:

Housing is unaffordable in all eight of New Zealand’s major markets, an international survey shows.

High median house prices have been upwardly skewed by recently imposed mortgage lending restrictions and low mortgage interest rates, an economist says.

The 10th annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey classified Auckland, Christchurch, Tauranga-Western Bay of Plenty, Wellington and Dunedin as “severely unaffordable”.

Palmerston North, Napier-Hastings and Hamilton-Waikato were “seriously unaffordable”, the survey said.

The survey uses a median multiple to determine the affordability rating of houses in 360 metropolitan markets in nine countries. The median multiple is calculated by dividing a region’s median house price by the median income.

Regions with house prices more than three times the median regional income are deemed unaffordable.

Overall, New Zealand had a median multiple of 5.5, up from 5.3 last year.

We need to free up more land. That is the component that has been increasing the most.

The Demographia survey is here.