Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Luke Somervell: Renters United President on the renters struggling to save for deposits, first-home buyers seeking financial assistance from family

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Luke Somervell: Renters United President on the renters struggling to save for deposits, first-home buyers seeking financial assistance from family · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: You'd number out this morning for you. Half of all
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: first home buyers expect help from the bank of Mum
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and Dad when they are going for their first home.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: This is a one choice Kiwi Housing survey. It's only
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: five hundred New Zealanders, but half of them reckon they're
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: skipping medical appointments to pay their rent. One third of
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  Speaker 1: renters think the cold and damp their cold and damp
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  Speaker 1: home is making them sicker. Luke Somerville is Renters United President,
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  Speaker 1: joins us this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, Luke, good morning.
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  Speaker 1: Well do you reckon most renters are saving for a house?
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  Speaker 1: Do most renters actually want to own a house?
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  Speaker 2: Well? I think I think a lot of people that's
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  Speaker 2: the dream, just because renting is so I was going
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  Speaker 2: to say, can swear anyway, it's not great. Look, it's
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: not great. People aren't having a good time, and so
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  Speaker 2: for a lot of people, the only way to get
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: out of that is to buy their own home.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And the thing with property prices is that now they
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  Speaker 1: are much lower than they were a couple of years ago,
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  Speaker 1: particularly in some of our biggest cities, I mean everywhere
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  Speaker 1: bar Queenstown basically, so it should, in theory be easier
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  Speaker 1: now than it has been in recent times.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you might say that, but the issue
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  Speaker 2: that we if you look at the long view over
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  Speaker 2: the last ten years, I mean I think it's said
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  Speaker 2: twenty one percent since twenty twenty. But even with when
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  Speaker 2: we're talking about rents, I just want to draw your
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  Speaker 2: attention to you know, its rate. It's increased by two
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  Speaker 2: hundred and fourteen, so fifty and ten years for rents.
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  Speaker 2: It's gone up a lot over a long time. And
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  Speaker 2: that's why rent is a feeling squeezed.
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  Speaker 1: And what do you think driving that looke? Do you
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  Speaker 1: think that that is regulation? Do you think that that
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  Speaker 1: is a lack of supply? And if it's a lack
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  Speaker 1: of supply, why don't we have enough supply?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean I think
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  Speaker 2: I think it's a lot of things. Lack of supply
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  Speaker 2: is a really big issue. Like for now, I'm sure
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  Speaker 2: you've seen there's been a big glut in the construction industry.
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  Speaker 2: So I mean, what what we're seeing often is just
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  Speaker 2: renters are just paying more and more money for the
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  Speaker 2: same you know, damp, drafty homes. It's our housing stock
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  Speaker 2: is really basically decaying as a country.
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  Speaker 1: What about the changes to healthy homes that was meant
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  Speaker 1: to make them all nice and spick and span. Is
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  Speaker 1: that not the case?
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  Speaker 2: Well, not really unfortunately. I mean there's there's a lot
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  Speaker 2: of loopholes and basically there's just not enough oversight and
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  Speaker 2: enforcement really. So what we do see is a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people, you know, they go tick tack tech all good,
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  Speaker 2: and then you know you find out, oh, well, why
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  Speaker 2: your renters you know, getting crooked from mold and all
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  Speaker 2: the rest of it, and really no one's kind of
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  Speaker 2: checking to make sure that these things are actually getting
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  Speaker 2: followed through. That's a big issume.
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  Speaker 1: Look do you reckon if we put more regulation and
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  Speaker 1: more taxes, if we did interest deductibility, do you think
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  Speaker 1: that would mean we have more supply of rental properties
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  Speaker 1: or less?
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  Speaker 2: Well, look, I think we need to look at our priorities, right,
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  Speaker 2: I mean the problem here rent feel like they're getting
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  Speaker 2: cons because our rents are barely moving or increasing actually,
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  Speaker 2: and then landlords are getting this two point nine billion
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  Speaker 2: dollar handout and tax breaks. I mean, what if we
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  Speaker 2: use that money to build more I don't know, community housing,
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  Speaker 2: kind order whatever, that would actually increase the play and
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  Speaker 2: that would low rents. But this money has just gone
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  Speaker 2: straight into their pockets. I mean. And the problem again
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  Speaker 2: we we've got as renters, right, is that you know,
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  Speaker 2: MPs on average have about two point two homes I
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  Speaker 2: think national last time I checked all throughout together of
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  Speaker 2: them one hundred and thirty six. And I think that's
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  Speaker 2: before we found out the car belts. Bates forgot about
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  Speaker 2: his twenty five properties in the trust. So you know,
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  Speaker 2: we're not really addresing the root cause of the issue, right.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Logan, I have to leave you there. I
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  Speaker 1: appreciate your time this morning. That's Luke Somerville, Renters United President.
• 3:56
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• 3:59
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• 4:02
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