More first home buyers shut out of market

New figures from Quotable Value show a sharp decline in first home buyers while house prices continue to rise, says Labour’s Housing spokesperson Phil Twyford.

“The numbers show first home buyers have dropped to the lowest level since 2010.

“As would-be first home buyers are forced to give up on their dream, speculators are filling the gap, keeping house prices out of reach of many New Zealand families and creating a generation of renters.

“LVRs don’t seem to be having as big an impact in central Auckland, where house prices are rising at alarming rates. Instead its places such as Hamilton, Wellington, Napier and Rotorua where first home buyers are being hardest hit, when house prices there aren’t out of control.

“LVRs should be targeted to areas where house price inflation is rampant. A house buyer in Napier shouldn’t be punished because the Government can’t get Auckland’s housing market under control.

“Last year John Key said this about LVRs: ‘I don’t think that it’s a tool that should be used to write a bunch of higher LVRs for rich people and lock out a whole lot of first-home buyers’.

“The QV figures show that’s exactly what’s happening,” says Phil Twyford.

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