Last week’s Covid cases in Auckland delayed Finance Minister Robertson’s housing policy announcements. The housing shortage has been at crisis levels for a long time, but the delay in this case is not likely to make any difference. Read more
On Tuesday, the Climate Change Commission extended the deadline for submissions on its draft recommendations by two weeks. The short extension would give the extra bit of time needed to receive crucial information from the Commission before submissions close. Read more
It is 2035, and the Government’s new BBQ buyback scheme has begun. It is now illegal to cook with gas, and the police are cracking down on underground Weber parties. Read more
Eric Crampton talks to Bryan Crump on Radio NZ Nights about urban land use planning systems and if they are fit for purpose. Eric would like to see more localised planning powers and points to a report by a UK think tank Policy Exchange called Strong Suburbs: Enabling streets to control their own development. Read more
There are calls for the Government to ease building restrictions if we want even a chance of fixing the housing crisis. The New Zealand Initiative report "The need to build - the demographic drivers of housing demand" shows population growth will require an extra 30-thousand homes per year. Read more
Wellington, 22 February 2021 – If New Zealand politicians thought the housing crisis in 2020 was bad, the worst is yet to come, warns a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. In The Need to Build: The demographic drivers of housing demand, Research Assistant Leonard Hong modelled 36 scenarios and found that New Zealand’s population gets older and larger by 2038. Read more
The political ‘buck passing’ of the responsibility for unaffordable housing by successive governments in New Zealand has created extremely expensive housing markets in cities such as Auckland and Wellington – and a national housing crisis. Auckland is the sixth least affordable city among 92 major global housing markets, according to the 2020 Demographia housing survey. Read more
If New Zealand politicians thought the housing crisis in 2020 was bad, the worst is yet to come, warns the Initiative's latest report, The Need to Build: The demographic drivers of housing demand. In this podcast, Oliver Hartwich speaks with report author, Research Assistant Leonard Hong, who explains the implications of these demographic changes (e.g. Read more
In his new report, The Need to Build: The demographic drivers of housing demand, Leonard Hong highlights New Zealand's housing crisis and explains why it is imperative to build now and to build fast. He spoke on Radio New Zealand's Morning Report about how demographic changes (such as population growth, ageing, and birth rates) mean that New Zealand will need far more dwellings than are currently being built. Read more
We are not building enough to meet the looming demographic changes and demands. In his interview on The AM Show, Leonard Hong highlighted findings from his report, The Need to Build: The demographic drivers of housing demand, which says policymakers should stop blaming the housing crisis on migration and speculation and instead find policy solutions to free up urban development and housing supply. Read more
“Demography is destiny”, as French sociologist Auguste Comte once put it. Few developments shape our society more than the composition, the age and size of our population. Read more
Against the predictions of most economists early last year, the housing market has boomed through Covid-19. Since March last year, house prices have risen by 20%, rents by 12%. Read more
Leonard Hong discusses the findings of his new report "The Need to build - the demographic drivers of housing demand" with Kate Hawkesby on Newstalk ZB. He explains that with New Zealand's population changes, we need to be build close to 20,000 dwellings annually for the next 20 years (even with zero net migration). Read more
Urban land use planning systems that load councils with the costs of urban growth while letting councils decide whether new housing can be built are a recipe for failure. This underpins a decade of low build rates, a substantial housing shortage, and skyrocketing house prices. Read more
In this week's podcast, Senior Economist Matt Burgess provides an update on the Climate Change Commission's draft emissions report. If you would like to listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more