Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income • Hacker News Board

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#151

Post by missedthecue » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

solenoidalslide wrote: post #119

refurb wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? At that income level you have great health insurance, can still qualify for state schools, maybe childcare? I agree at lower taxes the difference is more stark.

The United States is the fourth largest country in the world and has no kind of high speed rail of any kind

high speed rail is overrated. Tickets cost as much or more than an airline ticket, but even going at 300km/h, it takes 2 or 3 times the amount of time to travel. Even more if you have to make frequent stops to embark and disembark passengers.

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#152

Post by graftak » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:35 PM UTC

edf13 wrote: post #67

beardedetim wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In USA this isn't true. We bought a house using an FHA loan and put down less than 5% and our interest rate was lower than 3% if I remember correctly. Maybe not as reasonable as you are imagining but it was really low in our mind.

Over here in Europe larger deposits are in and getting larger.

Not in the Netherlands, just recently the mortgage-to-value ratio went from 102% to 100%, the additional 2% could be used for notary and tax costs.

When my parents bought their first house in the 90s you were able to loan ~120% of your home value so you could finance a new kitchen or even a car.

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#153

Post by TrackerFF » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:51 PM UTC

svth wrote: post #140

TrackerFF wrote: post #72

How are the lending laws in New Zealand, if they're regulated? Here in Norway, one can loan 5x of annual gross income (minus any debt you have), and at least a 15% down payment. Average annual household income here is 610000 NOK (~64500 USD). Average home price here (end of April) is 4483328 NOK (~473914 USD), so the ratio here would be 7.34 - but that's assuming single income household. For double income, that ratio…

> Average annual household income here is 610000 NOK (~64500 USD). Norway's GDP per capita is about USD70.000. Surely you're using GDP per capita, or average individual income, not household income? I have a very hard time believing that Norwegian average household income is just over half that of New Zealand.

Yeah, per capita - not household income.

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#154

Post by smcl » Fri, May 06, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

ipsi wrote: post #145

jvvw wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think London throws them out of whack all that much. I'm around Milton Keynes/Bedford so SE but a bit further than most folk would want to commute to London (and I'd imagine a reasonable percentage of the population live within a similar radius of London) and that average house price feels about right. You'd might manage to get a three-bed terrace or two-bed semi for that sort of amount I'd say.

I dunno - I always assumed that London-proper prices (i.e., not Milton Keynes) being so outrageously high, upwards of £1,000,000, would throw out the average. Though perhaps the number of slightly cheaper apartments brings it back down again (although of course statistics can't tell you that's because the apartments are the size of a shoebox). Plus as I understand it, a bit further north you could probably start gett…

https://espc.com/properties?locations=edinburgh&minbeds=2plu...

TIL the capital of my country is really out of the way :D

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#155

Post by Tiktaalik » Fri, May 06, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

ferdowsi wrote: post #139

elliottkember wrote: post #133

I can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned, but NZ has no capital gains tax, making property an interest-free investment. People put their wealth into the housing market ever since the 80s and are putting their untaxed profits back in. Source: kiwi.

Americans are exempted from a great amount of capital gains as well.

It's not just a primary home exemption. No capital gains at all, so it's a huge incentive toward secondary home ownership as well.

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#156

Post by Tiktaalik » Fri, May 06, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

elliottkember wrote: post #133

I can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned, but NZ has no capital gains tax, making property an interest-free investment. People put their wealth into the housing market ever since the 80s and are putting their untaxed profits back in. Source: kiwi.

This! It's wild, so wild.

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#157

Post by maccard » Fri, May 06, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #123

maccard wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is most depressing to me, where do people get the money?? It would take me 30 years of saving to get 500k, that's like 70-80% of my working life. Mortgages. This is why they exist. > You would pay over 100k in interest fees alone on a long term mortgage. You pay 100k of today's money in interest and fees over the course of 30 years. 100k in 1992 was worth far far more than 100k is worth today.

Yes, because a bank will happily give someone on a 60k salary a 1 million dollar mortgage.

They won't, but they'll give two people on 100k salaries a 1 million dollar morthage

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#158

Post by TrackerFF » Fri, May 06, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

IMTDb wrote: post #142

TrackerFF wrote: post #72

How are the lending laws in New Zealand, if they're regulated? Here in Norway, one can loan 5x of annual gross income (minus any debt you have), and at least a 15% down payment. Average annual household income here is 610000 NOK (~64500 USD). Average home price here (end of April) is 4483328 NOK (~473914 USD), so the ratio here would be 7.34 - but that's assuming single income household. For double income, that ratio…

Public policies are now heavily favouring public transport and cycling, which both require higher population density than single family homes to be effective. As a consequence, a higher share of the population is expected to live in apartments rather than homes compared to the 70's and 80's. Additionally, averages tend be impacted by outliers. Take the example of a rich heir buying a multi-million dollar mansion. His…

I had to look it up - median income here seems to be 45910 NOK (~4830 USD), but couldn't find any median price. But just from anecdotal evidence (i.e. sampling from different counties here), the it would be lower than the mean. Ratio wouldn't be too different, if I had to estimate.

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#159

Post by cuddlybacon » Fri, May 06, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

richbell wrote: post #120

yardstick wrote: post #86

In NZ we have created a culture that obsesses with house prices. It's been this way since at least 2000, if not earlier. Many peoples retirements plans hinge on them being landlords or holding large amounts of property. The NZ share market is a joke. Pretty much any serious global company that started in NZ moves away from NZ without even entering our sharemarket. There are a few exceptions of course, but by and larg…

> In NZ we have created a culture that obsesses with house prices. It's been this way since at least 2000, if not earlier. Many peoples retirements plans hinge on them being landlords or holding large amounts of property. Canada and New Zealand are similar in that respect. There are a sizable number of people with "investment properties", but the majority of homeowners own a single home and are counting on the price…

> in reality, being able to sell your house for 1.5MM isn't that much of a windfall when other houses are at least 1MM and rising rapidly, and renting is more expensive than having a mortgage.

This is starting to hit a lot of my parent's social circle. They are retiring, mostly from the edge of a big city.

About half plan to or have retired in a small town. In that case they are able to get something with the $1.5M they sold for, but they are driving prices up in those towns in a way locals can't afford.

The other half wants something else in the city. Some remaining in the suburbs, others move more into the city, others "in the sticks" and are all surprised that that's going to use up all of their $1.5M. They expect to buy something for $200k and have the rest for retirement lol.

Re: Average home prices in New Zealand reaches 8.8 times average household income

#160

Post by philjohn » Fri, May 06, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #138

philjohn wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way were you not likely to make it home? This was a place in South Staffordshire, on the chase line.

it is an extremely violent and dangerous place, and not reflected in crime statistics due to peoples distrust of the police and general motivation to "not be a dirty grass". I hear it's getting better with the students these days, but, as mentioned, it's quite dangerous to be any amount of affluent in Coventry. It's actually hard to convey how frightening it can be, to randomly be targeted while walking through the s…

Huh - I'm not a million miles away from Cov (Rugby) and never felt particularly unsafe there, then again, I've only been there at night a couple of times.