Auckland houses less affordable than New York

Low incomes put buying a home out of the reach of many.

New Zealand houses are among the world's most expensive when incomes are taken into account - and Auckland and Tauranga homes are less affordable than those in New York, says a major survey released today.

Low incomes and high house prices are leaving Kiwis badly off and preventing many from climbing onto the housing ladder.

The seventh annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey of 325 cities and regions has given us the thumbs down, putting New Zealand alongside Australia, Britain, the United States, Canada and Ireland as among the world's worst housing markets.

Four of the eight New Zealand markets surveyed - Auckland, Tauranga, Christchurch and Wellington - were classed "severely unaffordable". The other four - Hamilton, Napier-Hastings, Palmerston North, and Dunedin - were "seriously unaffordable".

Despite three years of a depressed economy, housing remains out of many Kiwis' reach. The situation has worsened because house prices fell only marginally yet job security lessened and wage rises dried up.

Reserve Bank and Real Estate Institute data were used to measure affordability by taking median house prices and dividing those by gross annual median household income. This gave the house price-income median multiple measure.

The ideal income-to-loan ratio is around three times an annual salary. But in New Zealand it takes 5.3 times the average annual salary to pay for a house. In Tauranga it takes 6.5 times the average annual salary and in Auckland 6.4 times. In New York, it's 6.1.

Survey co-author Hugh Pavletich, of Christchurch, called for more land to be made available for housing.

"The Government needs to recognise the importance of dealing with the housing supply issues with urgency, so that New Zealand is more affordable and competitive than Australia. This will encourage young New Zealanders to stay in their own country and contribute to its development.

"There is much work to do so that New Zealanders do not have to pay any more than three times their annual household income to house themselves. New Zealanders are paying twice what they should be for housing and construction costs are currently twice per square metre what they should be, due to urban planning degrading the performance of the residential construction sector over recent decades," Mr Pavletich said.

Tauranga is our least affordable city, followed by Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier-Hastings and Palmerston North.

The survey has been criticised by some as pushing right-wing free-market theories and developers' interests. But Brendan O'Donovan, Westpac's chief economist, praised it as useful and said three possible solutions to high house prices included relaxing urban land limits, cutting building compliance costs and imposing a tax on under-used land to discourage developers from hoarding property.

"The Australian and New Zealand housing markets are so stretched, whichever way you cut it compared to most of the rest of the world. A lot of us are saying if you are trying to get more affordable housing, it's not done by first-home buyer grants but more flexible supply-side measures."

This month, Westpac senior economist Dominick Stephens warned home buyers that present below-average fixed term mortgage rates could start rising rapidly.

Atlanta is the most affordable major city and Hong Kong is the least affordable. Sydney has become less affordable than Vancouver.

The Knight Frank Global House Price Index out late last year showed New Zealand had one of the world's smallest price falls.

Please Divert Your Course

This is based on an actual radio conversation between a U.S. Navy
aircraft carrier (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authorities
off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. (The radio
conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on
10/10/95 authorized by the Freedom of Information Act.)

Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to
avoid collision.

Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the
North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15
degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again,
divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND
LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE
ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS
SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES
NORTH--I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH--OR
COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Calling Extras for The Hobbit.

I've read in tonight's news that the call has been put out for extras to be auditioned for The Hobbit.

Essential requirements are:
- Men and Women aged 17-80 years
- Men: MUST be UNDER 170cm (5 foot 7 inches)
- Women: MUST be UNDER 158cm (5 foot 2 inches)
- You MUST be prepared to be available at short notice


It seems that at 176cm tall, I don't qualify. Does anyone have some form of spinal compressing device out there? ... LOL!

I guess that with being part way through the process of buying a house, I have enough on my plate at present.

So, if you fit all the above requirements and live in the central North Island of New Zealand, opportunity could be knocking at your door.

Bride Flight

Hi reader

I've been a bit slack on maintaining this blog in recent times. Whenever something newsworthy happens, I tend to forget about it when I log onto my machine. Sometimes I even forget that this blog exists. Hopefully, I can turn a corner here. It took me a few attempts to suss out my password.

Anyhow, three years ago, I had posted here about being a movie extra for the movie Bride Flight.
The movie was finally released on DVD recently. I didn't get around to seeing it during screening at the cinema. My parents informed me that I do appear a few times as an extra in the movie. I have since watched this myself, and identified myself in nine instances. It's not my taste in movies, but it's also not everyday that my mug shot appears in the background of a movie.

Sardines in Oil ... 2010 Style!

The Rules of Cricket Explained

The rules of cricket explained No. 1:

The pie metaphor.

Right. So the guy from the other team is called a "bowler" and he's trying to knock your pies down before you can eat them. He throws with an overhand motion, releasing the ball before he steps into the crease, usually bouncing the ball on the ground to make it harder for the pie-eater to pick up. To protect your pies, you have a bat, and when he throws the ball, you swing the bat and try to swat the ball away. If you hit it, you and the other pie-eater switch places and then you can eat one of his pies.

The rules of cricket explained No. 2:

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he is out. When they are all out, the side that's been out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

"When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out, he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who are out all the time, and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

Jury Service Oddities

This week, I was summoned to attend jury service. Though I constantly got shortlisted to be empaneled for juries on some mornings, I was never selected to be a juror (though I have been a juror on two prior occasions, whilst still living in Dunedin).

With the ever colourful idiosyncrasies of human nature being what they are, here are some truly bizarre highlights from this week:

Monday: The lady of Asian origins who ended up being a juror, but could not actually understand what was happening. She had to be replaced after the jury of twelve had already selected their foreperson. The judge questioned how this could happen and she was not amused.

A juror who had difficulty hearing; - the judge arranged for a court official to purchase headphones from Dick Smith's electronics, so that she could actually hear the proceedings.

Wednesday: The de facto couple who were both selected to appear on the same jury. Surely, there was pillow talk during this trial, but hopefully no domestic disputes erupted when they deliberated for a verdict. Myself, and a former work colleague who was also partaking in the jury pool, can not believe how this could actually happen.

The woman who's name was balloted to enter the jury box: - she asked the judge to be excused from the trial, as she did not feel able to take part in this particular case. The judge declined her request. Luckily for her, the defense lawyer subsequently issued a challenge, and she was thus eliminated from that jury. A replacement juror's name then had to be drawn from the ballot box.

Today (Thursday), another woman already empaneled on a jury of twelve, decided that once their respective foreperson had also been selected, she'd announce to the judge that she did not want to take part in the case, as her spouse/partner is a policeman. The defense lawyer then offered to expend his remaining "challenge". The judge declined the lawyer's offer, and stood the would-be-juror aside instead, A replacement juror then had to be selected.

Surely, most people who struggle with hearing, comprehension, or harbour some form of prejudice, declare this sort of information to the court officials before embarking on this stage in the proceedings.

There were multi-lingual signs plastered all over the jury assembly rooms, advising people to notify court officials of such issues.

All of this comical court entertainment helped, to sporadically humour the otherwise dull authoritative proceedings for us punters, who were there ... just biding our time and making up the numbers.