In the last couple of months there has been increasing reference to a ‘housing crisis’ in the media. But what even is a housing crisis?
I turned to the wisdom of the internet for a definitive answer, but instead of an answer I found many answers.
The term housing crisis has been used to describe several different situations, for example when prices are rising rapidly more people are shut out and
affordability becomes an issue. But there is also a crisis when prices are dropping and people owe more than their property is worth and lose money
and mortgagee sales increase. There is also a crisis when there is a severe housing shortage which leads to rising prices but also homelessness. In
all these situations the crisis for some is a windfall for others.
If you return to the definition of the word crisis it talks about an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive and undesirable change is impending.
Our current version of a crisis clearly relates to a market rapidly rising and everything that goes along with that, first in Auckland and now mostly nationwide.
As far as homelessness goes this is something being debated by both Government and the opposition and generally centres around the amount of state owned
houses provided for the poor. It’s tough to get hard data on the extent of homelessness in Auckland, but the anecdotes suggest that it is increasing.
It’s hard to deny that a significant increase in homelessness is a crisis for those affected.
Another potential measure of a ‘crisis’ is the level of home ownership, which is closely related to affordability.
At the last census (2013) home ownership had dropped to 64.8%, from 66.9% in...
