Page 31 - Housing Issues News Today

Friday, 5 February 2021, 4:32 pm With one of the highest rates of housing deprivation in New Zealand, the current housing shortage in Hastings is one of the most pressing challenges facing the district. As of September last year, more than 637 people were on the housing register waiting for homes in Hastings, almost 70 per cent of them Māori. Driving the crisis is strong population growth that has led to demand outstripping supply across all areas of the housing market, coupled with rising h...

Thursday, 28 January 2021, 3:01 pm Home ownership in Queenstown has never been more affordable thanks to the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust’s ground-breaking assisted ownership model, Secure Home. Three years after signing a contract for 50 of the 78 units in the Toru development at Remarkables Park, Frankton, the project was completed last month, and QLCHT is set to take possession of its units next month. QLCHT is currently in the process of allocating Secure Home units to 25 hou...

Weekly rents in most areas up $10 or more per week The average weekly rent in Auckland reached a new high of $595 at the end of 2020, just shy of a long-anticipated $600 per week. The figure is based on actual rents paid during December 2020 for around 16,500 Auckland properties, including both new and existing tenancies, managed by agency Barfoot & Thompson*. “We have long suspected the market would hit the $600 mark during 2020. And while this was dampened somewhat by the effects of lockdow...

National is calling on the Government to introduce urgent temporary legislation to make housing easier to build, and has offered to support the law change through Parliament. At her State of the Nation speech in Auckland today, Leader of the Opposition ...

Thursday, 21 January 2021, 3:01 pm Peak housing body, Community Housing Aotearoa (CHA) welcomes the updated Public Housing Plan announced today by Minister Woods, and the commitment by this Government to fix New Zealand’s housing crisis. The 8,000 additional homes are a significant step forward in delivery and the Government should be acknowledged for its housing programme. At the same time CHA urges the Government not to stop here – 21,415 whānau on the housing waiting list with thousand...

“It is shameful that the Government is so bereft of ideas on delivering more housing that it couldn’t answer any questions today beyond a plan to build fewer public houses by 2024 than there are families on the waiting list for public houses today,” ...

A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. Houses across the country are ballooning in value, meaning many homeowners are earning ...

A CAMPAIGN to bring about a ‘fairer, cleaner, quieter, happier and healthier’ way of life is hosting a community forum event for Somerset this month. During the coronavirus crisis, there has been much talk of a need for change in how society functions after the highlighting of inequalities. The National Build Back Better campaign aims to bring together diverse groups from across the country so that their combined call for a better way of life has to be heeded by councils and political...

By Shaina Mishkin Order Reprints Print Article Mortgage rates hit another historic low this week, according to Freddie Mac—but don’t expect ultralow rates to last forever. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 2.65% for the week ending Jan. 7, 2021, a new low, according to the company’s weekly survey of mortgage rates. In a release, Sam Khater, the company’s chief economist, said recent low rates have been offset by climbing home prices, challenging home affordabili...

Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group 29 December 2020, original url: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/29/hous-d29.html   For hundreds of thousands of families in New Zealand, the holiday period this year will be one of the hardest in living memory. Like other countries, the ...