New Zealand commission launches inquiry into ‘massive human rights failure’ on housing

New Zealand currently has the lowest number of houses available for sale in 14 years, combined with the highest average asking price on record, according to the July 2021 market report from Realestate.co.nz.

 There were just 12,684 homes up for sale across the country, down 34.8% from July 2020, the report found. The national average asking price hit an all-time high of $893,794. Auckland is now considered one of the world’s least affordable housing markets, with median house prices about 10 times median income. New Zealand’s housing affordability crisis has been building for over a decade, and worsened significantly through the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Existing problems with affordability, high costs of materials and regulations constraining urban supply have been compounded by ultra-low interest rates, and a faster-than-expected economic recovery from the pandemic. Years of tax-free capital gains also helped to create an investor market that often prices out owner-occupiers. 

 Last year, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha, visited New Zealand and called the housing situation there “a human rights crisis” and “a dark shadow that hangs over the country”.

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