"There was a time, in the not-so distant past, when housing was affordable and buying a house to raise your family was not the unobtainable dream it is today."
Source for both.
Is the text really an objective reflection of the facts?
The increase through the 1970s and 80s was significantly driven by State Advance loans and the ability to capitalise on Family Benefit. That particularly helped Maori and Pacific families with typically more children. But the boon for large families has also turned into a negative factor in that one family home cannot be passed to 6 or 7 children nor shared inherited wealth stretch to affording home ownership.
But a 10% fall in home ownership over thirty years is not an irretrievable disaster. Neither is it unique to NZ. The UK, the US, and Australia all have similar current rates and all have fallen over the past decades.
