Hon Phil Twyford
Minister of Housing

13 February 2019

MEDIA STATEMENT

Figures released today show that wages are rising faster than house prices, Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford says.

“Latest house price figures from Quotable Value show the annual growth rate has fallen to 2.9 per cent. This compares to Statistics NZ figures showing wages grew by 3.3 per cent in the year ending December 2018.

“This compares to 2016 when house prices rose 16 per cent and wages rose just 1.8 per cent.

“Today’s figures are great news for families locked out of the homeownership and for those first home buyers currently in the market.

“Although the average house price in Auckland is now $1.05 million, prices declined by 0.9 per cent, showing our most overheated market has stabilised. Housing commentators expect the market to continue to slow.

“These figures show the Government’s housing policies are beginning to work. To address housing demand, we have changed tax settings to discourage speculators and banned offshore investors buying existing houses.

“To increase housing supply, our Government is building more houses than any government has since 1978. We’ve built 1100 new state houses, put a total of almost 2000 households into public housing, completed 62 KiwiBuild homes and have 279 under construction.

“Our Government’s sound economic management is keeping interest rates low and increasing wages,” Phil Twyford said.

Editors notes:

To address the housing crisis and help meet the housing needs of every New Zealander, since October 2017 our Government has:

Built 1104 new state houses and will build 6400 more public housing places over the next four years
Put 1926 households into public housing (includes new state homes and community provided housing)
Developed Healthy Homes standards
Begun reforming outdated tenancy laws
Changed tax settings to make the housing market fairer and stopped foreign ownership of existing homes
Completed 62 KiwiBuild homes, started construction on 279 more, and have 10,355 more in the pipeline

ends

© Scoop Media