How same is the same housing market? A reader has taken issue with a comment in my last column that “the vast majority of current homeowners… could just sit out a plunge in house prices, or else sell and buy in the same market and suffer no loss.”
Q&As: Should a couple with 3 children move to a bigger house in town or take a bet on a coastal property?; Are KiwiSaver bond funds as conservative as they seem?
Q&As: Student allowance rip-off is not OK; Advice for house-less Gen Xers: Buy a rental property in the provinces; Rental property buyers feel like the scourge of society; The cliché king has his say; Cardboard boxes and contentment.
Q&As: Four readers give diverse views on whether baby boomers or Generation Xers got a better deal on tertiary education, student loans, and affordability of houses.
Q&As: Three readers defend baby boomers and suggest how today’s young could afford to buy homes; A Generation Xer speaks up for her generation; A reader worries that apartments may lose value.
Q&As: Auckland houses may be unaffordable, but apartments aren’t; One man is happy with is inexpensive home; Homeowner feels anything but smug about being in the housing market; War is declared between the baby boomers and the younger generation; Last time New Zealand tried to control rents, it was disastrous.
Q&As: Would-be homeowners may need to lower their standards a bit — with some help from Monty Python; Inflation hits property at least as much as share funds; Californian astounded by our “real estate mania”.
Q&As: Rent control would do more harm than good; The cost of staying out of the housing market; Reader insists it’s worthwhile to try to time foreign exchange movements. It’s all his!
Obsessed with property? Not us. New Zealanders are not as property mad — or as mortgage mad — as we’ve been led to believe, recent research shows.
Q&As: A tax on house sales, to subsidise first home owners, is a lovely idea that wouldn’t work; Renting and saving elsewhere can leave you better off than home ownership; Semi-retired couple who sold their home and rent are probably doing fine.