Such is the clarion call from those frustrated Aucklanders (and some other NZers) who want a home but cannot even save for a reasonable deposit, never lone paying the huge mortgage. I am not talking elite homes either here; just a normal three bedroom home in an average suburb.
Probably on the same day a headline will be observed quoting the prices of houses in the towns and secondary cities of New Zealand. Great, you say---why don’t these home seekers move to these towns? ‘We would,’ they reply, ‘but where are the jobs?’
Fair point, so they stay in Auckland, struggling to pay the ever increasing rents and attempting to save for the home that is fast sailing into the distant; never to be achieved.
What can we do as a nation? We can’t even keep up with the housing pressures in Auckland, even if people could afford them. Apparently we need to build 10,000 new homes every year just to tread water as it were, so all the possible new moves by the Government are most likely going to add up to diddly squat.
Are we going to hear the cry for ‘regional development again? Are we going to come up with new solutions whereby people receive help to move and firms become eligible for tax breaks if they make the move to the regions? Some of these things have been mooted in the past, but always being dropped as the financial costs scared the politicians away or the government proposing such policies gets turfed out of office.
Is not this whole issue one that needs a bi-partisan approach? Hell no---- they can’t seem to agree on other issues facing the nation like our bourgeoning need to have an across party policy on retirement, so the chances of any real sense being talked on housing, regional development and the subsequent new jobs, is just going to be ‘pie in the sky’ stuff.
If you are young and wish to own your own home, forget it, unless you are prepared to think outside the square and encourage the political parties to join you. It is going to take a major event that imposes new solutions---an event that overseas, like warfare, increased terrorism or some sort of terrible climatic change.
Why wait for that to happen? Come-on politicians--- get off your butts and talk to one another without point scoring. We cannot let our problems just slip to future generations.
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