By Alex Tarrant
“What the @#$% is going on with housing supply!?!”
A Reserve Bank staffer throws hands in the air, gets up from computer, walks to the water cooler, kicks it, then goes for a cigarette out the back of the building.
“What’s happened to economic fundamentals?” the staffer bellows across to a bemused porter from the Bolton Hotel.
“Demand rises, prices rise…supply doesn’t.”
Launches into a rant that makes passers-by scurry along to the Terrace a step faster.
“How about those Warriors?” porter offers up after his third lecture on general equilibrium theory that week starts to get a bit tedious.
“Not surprised one bit. They’re an Auckland team, aren’t they! They can’t get anything right up there!”
Becalmed slightly, the staffer returns to their desk and puts the finishing touches on their portion of the May Financial Stability Report.
“Supply remains slow to respond to high prices”
“High house price and rental price growth reflects strong demand for housing relative to supply.”
That’s a fair start.
“This is, in part, driven by high levels of migration. Over 60,000 more people of working age moved to New Zealand than left in the year to April.”
Also true. Keeping to the script.
“Supply has been slow to respond to population growth, particularly in Auckland where about half of new migrants have settled. Building activity has picked up over the past two years, but the level of consent issuance in Auckland is still likely to be insufficient to accommodate population growth and address existing housing shortages.”
Try not to let the annoyance show through too much.
“The level of building activity may reflect a number of factors, including higher construction costs, capacity pressures in the construction industry and uncertainty around aspects of Auckland’s Unitary Plan, which is only partly implemented.”
They still haven’t sorted it out up there.
“It may also reflect the tightening of credit availability for residential property developers. Major banks have become more selective in lending to developers and have tightened lending standards in response to slowing deposit growth and a perceived increase in risks in the sector.”
Bit rough if I put all the blame on the Auckland Council.
“In the long term, an increase in housing supply is needed to address the underlying imbalance between demand and supply in many regions.”
We’ve been saying this for how many years now?
“It is uncertain whether the current constraints on building activity will persist. It is possible that building activity in regions with the greatest demand and supply imbalances could pick up in the near term.”
Got to pay some respect to economic fundamentals.
“The final form of the Auckland Unitary Plan is becoming clearer and several key appeals have been resolved in recent months. Also, construction sector resource constraints could ease as residential rebuild activity declines in Christchurch.”
Always conclude with a diplomatic tone.
17 Comments
In planning theory terms, I'd say AKL's housing (and congestion) crisis has become a "wicked problem" as per this definition:
Rittel and Webber's 1973 formulation of wicked problems in social policy planning specified ten characteristics:
1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good or bad.
4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.
6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.
10. The social planner has no right to be wrong (i.e., planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
We once owned a lifestyle block that had lots of gorse which we'd spent countless hours chipping away at. The previous owner stopped by one day and I asked, "what is the solution to getting rid of this gorse once and for all?" And he responded, "sell the place". So we did! Best decision ever.
There is an analogy in that for Aucklanders.
This is sobering on Stuff yesterday
Altair Asset Management
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/93121686/Disaster-looms-for-prope…
In the year to June 2016:
"Canterbury's housing market is still in a post-earthquake boom, with consents outstripping the rest of the country.
Over the last year, Canterbury had the highest level of new homes consented per capita in the country.
According to Statistics New Zealand, 11 new homes were consented for every 1000 Canterbury residents in the year to June
The next highest number of consents per capita were Bay of Plenty and Waikato, tied at eight consents per 1000 residents.
Auckland was tied with Northland for the lowest number per capita, with six homes consented per thousand residents.
The national average was also six – double what it was in 2011.@
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/83636539/canterbury-tops-housing-consen…
Interest.co.nz should show the up to date statistics on "consents per thousand" for each region/city
Another major issue other than consents is construction costs. Building materials and labor are severly overpriced in my opinion (I'm in the process of pricing a house to build) as the comparative cost to build vs. buying a house is so much higher. I'm now considering sitting on my hand for another 1-2 years to let this market sort itself out. Or buying a house and sitting on my section until the boom is over.
Didn't you know
National is ideologically opposed to attacking property investment on the demand side, while
The supply side solution has been very slow to gear up and falls further behind.
Here you go - in black and white - In NZ Herald - fourth last paragraph
http://beta.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11…
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