Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Sam Stubbs: Simplicity Founder on the growing number of people who doubt they'll ever own a home

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Sam Stubbs: Simplicity Founder on the growing number of people who doubt they'll ever own a home · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've had some insight into home ownership and new report
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: from Kiwibank revealing eighty five percent of us think that
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: owning a home is important and two out of three
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of us think it's essential to getting ahead. In New Zealand,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: two thirds of non homeowners feel lockdown of the market
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and almost half are open to exploring other ways to
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: get onto it. Sam Stubbs is these simplicity founderies with
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: us this morning, Sam, good morning, Good morning. You own
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: a big issue here is obviously saving for a deposit
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: cost a living crisis makes that very hard. How do
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you get over that barrier? I mean, do we just
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: have to wait until wages go up again?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Look, it's super hard, isn't it. I mean, an
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: awful lot of people and now using kiwisaver as they're
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: effectively their first home deposit vehicle, right, And it's pretty
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: well pretty well sorted for that because you put some
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: money in your employer book, put some money in and
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: you can't otherwise touch it really until then, so that
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: that's working out to be useful. But the problem is,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: as you say, even deposits are a very large sum
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: of money, so it takes a long time to be
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: saving that. So yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. Either
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: wages have to go up, or taxes have to go down,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: or effectively we have to spend less on living and
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: save more via a Kiwi Saver. It's probably going to
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: be a combination of all those three things over the years,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: but it's absolutely tough. You're right. You know. The really
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: interesting number for me, Ryan is that back in nineteen eighty,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: about eighty two percent of New Zealand, New Zealand has
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: owned their own home. Now it's about sixty two percent.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: So since nineteen eighty we've had about twenty percent of
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: New Zealanders it basically had had to rent because they
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: couldn't have to buy their home. So owning your own
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: home is the Kiwi dream is just becoming harder.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I thought the interesting thing here was sixty six percent
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of us say yes, you do need to own a
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: home in New Zealand in order to get ahead, which
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: means I mean there's still a good chunk who don't
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: think that that believe you can get a head through
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: other means.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, you know you've got the sheer market, you've
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: got Kiwi Savior, got investing in your own business, there's
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of other ways to make money. And
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: of course, you know, if you look at countries like Germany, right,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: you know, more than fifty percent of the population rent,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: and they rent because they can rent very long term.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: I met a family in Berlin years ago who was
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: i think to their fifth generation of renting in the
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: same home, and because they had rights as renters, they
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: could live there as of right. You know that they
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: basically couldn't be kicked out, the apartment couldn't be sold
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: from underneath them. They thought renting was perfectly reasonable and
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: they'd use the extra money to invest in other stuff.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: So it's certainly not the only option. And the thing too,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: of course, remember Ian is you've got a whole lot
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: of younger people who are moving around a lot more
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: right now. They don't necessarily buy into the dream of
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: buying a home and living in the same city or town.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: You've got a whole lot of older people too who say,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: you know what, I'd rather actually sell the house, free
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: up the money rent so I can spend it on
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: other stuff that I want in my in my elder years,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: as long as I have housing security. So that's the issue.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Once you provide people with curity they know they can
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: stay there as long as they want. You find a
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: whole lot of people saying I don't really mind whether
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I own own or rent. The other thing too, of course,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: is that we've lived in the last thirty years right
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: in the world where house prices have kept on going up.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: So there's this is some and we've had we've had
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: a tax system which is incentivized people to buy houses
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: because those gains are tax free. Whereas if you know,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: in theory, if you're stuck it in the share market
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: as a trader or care we save it, you pay taxes.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Now is that going to carry on? You know? I mean,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: houses have become so unaffordable, there has to be a
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: point which the house prices stop rising as fast as
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: they have in the past, So maybe it won't be
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: quite as good in an investment as it used to be.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you there, Sam, I just I mean,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and you look at those reports from Treasury and the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: like that say, well and the Tax Working Group that
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: adding a capital gains tax isn't necessarily going to bring
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: those prices down. But I take your point.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Sam.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for coming on the show. Always
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. Sam Stubbs Simplicity found For more from.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks
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