http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3543/features/10784/lodges_of_last_resort.html

Lodges of last resort
by David Fisher

In Mangere, property owners are making money from families who have no choice but to live in squalid, crowded lodges. Many are beneficiaries sent there by Housing New Zealand staff.

In the winding backstreets of Mangere, where most New Zealanders will never go, there is a shameful secret. Here, in a South Auckland cul de sac, almost 1000 people live in a cluster of buildings that was once the Mangere hospital for the insane and intellectually handicapped, closed in 1994.

In an area of about a square kilometre, the buildings of the former institution have been turned into privately owned boarding houses.

Entire families – some with up to four children – live in rooms little more than three metres by four metres that were originally designed for single patients. Each boarding house has about 30 rooms, branching off long, lino-covered institutional hallways. There are a handful of toilets to cater for as many as 100 people. Showers are shared, as is the single stove in a communal kitchen.

Many were brought here by Housing New Zealand Corporation, the state housing provider that boasts it “provides New Zealanders with access to good-quality, affordable homes”. Some are on waiting lists for state homes. They have waited months, even more than a year, after being told, they say, by Housing NZ staff that their situation is not an emergency and that they don’t require special treatment.

And so they stay. For rooms with a single occupant, the private landlords collect as much as $140 a week. Families pay up to $250 a week for a room – just under the national average of $300 for a house. Many are beneficiaries; their rent comes from taxpayers and vanishes into the pockets of private landlords.

etc… quite a bit more online…

But going from what they were saying, a “room little more than three metres by four metres” is therefore about 12m2. And they’re claiming that in some cases, entire families live here ie 6 persons, in 12m2, that’s 2m2 per person.

—-

Or build a gang pad…

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4473753a6479.html

Student neighbours can devalue a house by 10pc
| Thursday, 10 April 2008

Suburban New Zealanders rate students as second only to squatters in a roll-call of undesirable neighbours, such as party people sharing houses and families with teenage kids.
A small on-line survey by property listings website allrealestate has “revealed” that “doof doof” parties – with lots of that electronic music that thumps monotonously – and students’ reputations for long lie-ins and piles of dirty dishes around the sink alienate their middle class neighbours.
Having such students as neighbours could devalue a home by up to 10 per cent, according to the website’s Melbourne-based general manager Shaun Di Gregorio, who said 59 percent of New Zealanders ranked students as the worst neighbours.
“Students are notorious for having a good time and living in messy conditions,” he said, in comments based on a survey of 242 people.
Squatters fared worse, scorned by 83.5 percent of respondents, and people sharing a house rate marginally better than students, despised by 44.5 percent of the people surveyed.
Families with teenaged children did comparatively well, annoying only 27 percent of the population with slamming doors, arguments and musical instrument practice.
Mr Di Gregorio said one in 10 potential homebuyers believed squatters next door would devalue a house by up to 15 percent, and almost a quarter believed students would wipe 10 percent from the value of an average New Zealand home priced at $337,000.
Party prone youngsters were said to knock 5 percent off neighbouring home’s value, with their critics citing a lack of interest keeping a rented property tidy, and headaches caused by loud music and rowdy revellers.
Childless couples, retirees and singles were voted the perfect neighbours, Mr Di Gregorio said.
“Our neighbours have a significant influence on our quality of life, especially in suburban areas and increasingly, house hunters are prepared to pay a premium for a quiet, trouble-free life,” he said.

So, a small tin shed, with cardboard walls and a tin roof, on the side of a muddy hill sounds about right. But isn’t that just called a slum?

I looked at that Wilton couple in the paper and thought similar things, but don’t just buy into what the papers tell you and assume everyone who is complaining about this is the same breed of person.

People have a right to be picky about where they choose to lay down their 400,000 dollars of cash (or 800,000 dollars by the time they’ve paid off the mortgage). It’s a lot of money! Especially for the average person. Would you run a business without being diligent with your spending? And most people shy away from apartments because Wellington’s early apartments (which they’re all familiar with) were utter crap, and they’ve seen a lot of people lose money in the apartment market due to dodgy deals and over inflated prices, and not to mention a large amount of it is targeted not at home buyers but investors. So that’s only sensible on their part when they can get land for the same price.

Contrary to your view of some snobby elite (stimulated by the press and tv coverage of this issue), a large amount (probably the majority) of people in this country are on pretty crap wages, just go out work a 9-5 job (or more) for their money, partner up with someone else doing that (eventually divorce), want a simple life, the bbq’s in summer, etc., want to build a home for their family. This is it for them. They DO NOT want to become property investors and most of them DO NOT have the smarts and money to become property investors. But unfortunately for them, the system is set up to favour investors (no capital gains, LAQCs, etc.).

So you’re very constructive options so far seem to consist of:

- Get over it and rent
- Move to the country you whinging poofs, back in my parents day they had to take the train! And there was only 1 TV channel!

With no thought to the consequences economically of shifting everyone into the boonies. Or consideration about what will keep rent low and fair. Or consideration about how much it actually costs to live far away from where you work these days (and that’s only going to get worse). Or what happens when a large amount of low income people are forced into one area by the lovely “market”. Or what happens to the economy when productivity reduces because of this.

So I think we arrive at two points:

1. Does the analysis indicate that the cost of buying or renting a house today is equivelent to what it was throughout the last few decades? Or is it increasing? And can we project that it is likely to continue increasing? The stuff I’ve seen indicates it has been increasing, and is going to continue increasing, but I’ve not done thorough analysis so would like to hear other opinions.

2. If we want this country to grow, we need to provide adequate living conditions for workers close to their jobs. The conditions should be on average reasonable, and improving, not decreasing. We’re a 1st world country, not an emerging economy like china or brazil, and we certainly don’t want to end up forcing a large class of people into slums because we didn’t control rents, or we didn’t provide the opportunity for families to own homes. So how do we best do that? (And if the answer to 1 is yes, its increasing, then the answer to two can’t be do nothing.)

What I’m trying to get at is that most people have prioritized home ownership and have put it further down the list.

The list might look like this………

I want a house
In Wellington
Central
With a veiw
And parking
not an apartment
not too many stairs
Im prepared to pay a deposit of 5%
I’m not prepared to pay more in mort paymnets than it would cost to rent the same property.
I’m not prepared to live further out of town than Wilton
I’m not prepared to make my own lunch to afford it.
I’m not prepared to stop buying watered down crushed plant seads in a cup every morning.

And if I can’t get all this then there must be no affordable houseing in Wellington.

I don’t think this is too far from the average buyers list.

V