“Let’s face it, for-profit private sector actors will never deliver affordable housing for those in society who need it most. They’re in it for the money. The purpose of this website is to provide commentary and links to independent research, reports and data on third sector (not-for-profit) housing systems and policy interventions, how these contribute to improved socially-diffuse housing outcomes, and how they can be enabled (here or anywhere).”
— Níall Mayson
Why we need to re-think housing policy.
New Zealand is a poster-child for unaffordable housing and market instability. It’s disingenuous for anyone to contend that house prices, annual price growth, overburden costs and building costs are sustainable. OECD house price data for the period 2000-2023 shows nominal house prices here increased ~395% compared to ~177% for all OECD countries, and ~113% for Euro area countries. During the same period real house prices here increased ~209% compared to ~62% for all OECD countries, and ~37% for Euro area countries. Housing affordability, measured by price-income ratio, has worsened ~98% over the period, compared to ~22% for all OECD countries, and ~21% for all Euro area countries. Further, the housing cost overburden rate here — the share of the population spending more than 40% of household income on housing costs — for households in the bottom quintile of income distribution is the second highest in the OECD for owners with a mortgage (~54%) and the third highest for private renters (~57%). Essentially the poorer you are here the more you pay for your housing. Housing policy mainly favouring greenfield and backyard subdivision to build low density houses has failed to produce improved, socially-diffuse, housing affordability. What recent policy has ushered in is market instability, a boom in ‘for-profit’ residential investment property, rapid price and rent growth and expensive housing — especially for low income households. Politicians on both the right and left resemble possums on a highway transfixed by the headlights of neo-liberal economics — unable to move forward (or even back to the time when we had a collective social conscience). It always ends in a mess!
What is very clear is we’re never going to subdivide our way to better housing outcomes — only growing social inequality. Just as clear, based on a review of approaches taken by countries achieving better market stability and improved and more socially-diffuse housing outcomes, is that we will need (more) proactively involved state and municipal sectors and a long-term policy agenda with pan-political buy-in. Any notion that the state should step back and leave it to the market to deliver more affordable and better quality housing is not supported by the evidence. The recent housing policy initiatives aimed at improving affordability for lower income households have been a complete failure. So if we value socially-diffuse access to good quality and affordable housing, as a foundation for a well-functioning society, it is time to re-think our housing sector policy approach. Diversifying our housing market to enable ‘third sector’ (not-for-profit housing) — especially for people where conventional property ownership or market pricing is out of reach — is an easily implementable strategy to positively disrupt the housing ecosystem. Of course this will require a (long overdue) break from neo-liberal and political ideology, cross-party consensus and a long-term focus. Let’s face it, for-profit private sector actors will never deliver affordable housing for those in society who need it most. They’re in it for the money. The purpose of this website is to provide commentary and links to independent research, reports and data on third sector (not-for-profit) housing systems and policy interventions, how these contribute to improved socially-diffuse housing outcomes, and how they can be enabled (here or anywhere).