February 25, 2026 • 17 mins
New figures show New Zealand women are significantly under-represented in property ownership.
More than half (53%) of Gen Z men and two-thirds (66%) of Millennial men own the home they live in.
That’s compared to the female figures of about a third and under half, respectively.
Today on The Front Page, Cotality NZ’s chief property economist, Kelvin Davidson is with us to discuss what’s contributing to the discrepancy, and how we might be able to fix it.
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Host: Chelsea Daniels
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Producer: Jane Yee
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kilda.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. New figures
show New Zealand women are significantly underrepresented in property ownership.
More than half of gen Z men and two thirds
(00:26):
of millennial men own the home they live in. That's
compared to the female figures of about a third and
under half, respectively. Today on the Front Page, Cotality and
Z's chief property economist, Kelvin Davidson is with us to
discuss what's contributing to this discrepancy and how we might
be able to fix it. So Kelvin, the report shows
(00:52):
a significant ownership gap between men and women, especially among
younger generations. The most striking factor is contributing to this,
do you think yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I think it's really comes down to two things, and
the first thing is going to be income. We know
there's a gender wage gap. Unfortunately across New Zealand. It
has closed and if you go back sort of three
five years something like that, it was about a nine
percent wage gap. So so female is getting paid about
nine percent less for a very similar job. That gap
has closed five percent, So that's good, but obviously more
(01:27):
needs to be done. A survey shows that smaller proportion
of females earned say more than one hundred thousand, there's
some kind of benchmark. Whichever wage you look at, there
are lower proportions of females earning that wage. So I
think it's reflecting financial resources. It's that wage gap, it's
lower salaries for similar work and just generally overall income
(01:49):
is a bit lower. So that's going to be a
restraint in terms of property ownership. It's going to be
harder to afford a property. But there's the surveys also
telling us there's perhaps some I don't think it's education
gets necessarily, but just the sort of information gap in
the sense of understanding the homeboying process. There's about sixteen
percent of female respondents. Of those females we haven't owned
(02:11):
a property or don't own a property now, about sixteen
percent said they just didn't know whe'd start, and there
was about six percent for males. So you know, those
figures aren't massive, but it's quite it's a reasonable gap
between male and female I guess sort of understanding of
the home buying process. So, yeah, if we can fix
the income GEP, if we can, I guess better target
(02:33):
educational processes around home buying. That will all help make
a difference, and I hope we can make progress over
the medium term in.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Terms of how this survey is conducted. I know one
thing that people may point out is like, well, you know,
in a couple, the house might be under a man's name.
Would that take Is that taken into account when getting
these results?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah? I mean that will be an issue for some respondents,
but I guess we're simply asking people do their own property?
Do they not? Why don't they if they don't these
sorts of things. I suspect that, you know, okay, technically
in some cases that it might be the man's name
on the title. There were cases where I guess it's
(03:19):
only the women's name on the title as well, so
it could go both ways. But I suspect in most cases,
even if it is only the man's name on the
title in a male female partnership and obviously a very
different type of multiple different types there, But in a
male female partnership, even if it is the man's name
on the title, I suspect the female respondent would probably
(03:42):
still say, yep, I own the property, even if technically
if you went right into the records the title, it
might tell you something different. So I suspect that's probably
not a big deal. It may be an issue in
some cases, but I don't think it would be a
game changer for the overall results.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
In terms of perhaps support. What would that look like
and whose responsibility do you think it falls on?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Well? I mean everyone, really, you know, there's this I
suppose it's easy in this issue and these sorts of
issues to point fingers that that you know, men point
fingers at women. I'm in In the end, it's it's
it's on everyone to improve these issues, whether whether that's
a female already on an executive or a male already
on an executive. You know, it's it's really down to everyone,
(04:26):
I think. And I think there's obviously a greater awareness
of the issues here, and it's not just in relation
to property, but just in relation to the workplace in general.
You know, there's there's issues here to be fixed. So
I think it's on everyone, really, and anything government can
do to improve those those sorts of roles as well
would be a good thing. And so, okay, one of
(04:47):
those things progress made, but more to do.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
In terms of getting onto the property ladder. I mean,
the barriers are getting higher and higher, right, no matter
what gender you are or how you identify. I mean,
it used to be like, well, rent it costs the
same amount as a mortgage, so why don't we just
invest in a house and get a property or something.
But it's really not the case these days.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Hey yeah, I mean so definitely not saying that buying
a property is easy by any means. It's still expensive.
There's still a lot of challenges there. What we have seen, though,
if you look at housing affordability measures, certainly over the
past three or four years, is that it has got easier.
I'm not saying it's easy, but it has got easy year.
I mean, house prices are down nationally eighteen percent from
the peak, interest rates have fallen a lot in the
(05:30):
past couple of years, and of course in the meantime
incomes have gone up. So if you look at i
fairly standard measure of affordability such as new mortgage payments,
is there as a share of household income that's now
pretty much back down to its average. So it started
from a very stretch Levelso all it's done is really
returned to average. But that's still a big improvement on
(05:50):
where it was. And you know, if you use average
as a measure of normality, well you could probably say
it's relatively normal now. It hasn't gone below average. It's
not screaming only cheap, but things are a lot easier
than they have been. And you know, this finance available
for people if they can satisfy certain serviceability criteria. There
is finance available at the banks. That's that's not an issue.
(06:13):
So yeah, there are reasonable conditions out there for buyers
at the moment. Gain not saying it's easy. Were regardless
of female, male, it's still a challenge to buy that
fairst property. But I think it always has been, you know,
and you can look at different challenges through time. Maybe
perhaps house prices were a lot lower in nineteen eighty,
but also interest rates we're a heck of a lot higher,
(06:33):
and some sometimes in the past, so there's always swings
aroundabout So I think it's never easy, but at least
we have seen some improvement and housing affordability, and I
think there's every reason to think that that stays around
for a while because you look at things like land supply.
At the moment, the government's pushing really hard on regulatory
change for more houses, and we have seen good progress
(06:55):
on that actually in the last couple of years that
the stock of physical housing has risen relative to populations.
So I think there's reasonable cause for optimism there. I
think it has to stick through the political cycle. Of course,
who knows what's going to happen later in the year.
But yeah, there's the government's government's pushing very hard and
land supply hopefully getting that up that will have a
favorable impact on affordability too. So I'm a sort of
(07:18):
I'm fairly optimistic on that one.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
What I'm getting from that is that I need to
stop ordering takeout because it really is doable and possible.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I'm not going to
dip into the sort of trouble CEF lending rules that
were around a while ago where banks were scrutinizing the
sort of Netflix and what was it Evcado and Toast and.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Things were too.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, but now those rules have relaxed now, and that
was a good good thing because they were overly stringent.
But yeah, I mean, each to their own that there's
no financial advice here anything, and people make their own decisions.
But what we are seeing in the market at the
moment is the first time buyers are very active, running
at a record numbers in fact of market share. Now
(08:01):
in a busier market as well. That's more deals too,
so so first time buyers are really active. I mean
lower interest rates out which are lower house prices help,
I should say, as well as tapping in the KII
savor that's a support. There is always that, I guess,
non monetary incentive of security of tenure, you know, getting
into a getting into an owner occupied property. Now I'm
(08:24):
not I'm not against renting by any means. I think
it's a it's a it's a great option that you
look at a lot of countries around the world most
people actually rent, and they're not they're not they're not
poor countries, they're not on a path to oblivion or
anything that you're talking here. Countries like Germany, like Switzerland,
you know most people rent there and you know they
do pretty well. So renting is not not a bad things.
(08:52):
I'm a woman, I'm learning this. That's a lot. When
it's not an investment that me and my longtime boyfriends
are going into together. People just continue to assume and
say that we bought it together. At the end of
the day, it's not this huge issue, but I thought
it was something that is interesting to look at, analyze
and talk about because I believe that more and more
(09:14):
women should be doing what I'm doing, which is making
their own investments apart from their family, apart from their mothers,
their fathers, their boyfriends, their husbands, because at the end
of the day, we don't live in a world that
really puts us first, so we have to put ourselves
first sometimes we are.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So we are very trends fixed on home ownership in
this country, and it's something that we've talked about on
this podcast time and time again. Do you think that
will ever shift or is that just the way it
is here?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Well, I mean it does seem pretty ingrained. I mean,
and we have seen over time that his affordability has
got more challenging, that home ownership right has come down.
But I think there's a distinction to we made here
between I guess what people would would like to happen
and what can happen your choice first necessities thing. And
you know, even though the home ownership rate has come
(10:09):
down in some cases, that won't be a choice. It's
just simply the tousing's got less affordable over time. And
so I suspect if you said to people you know
that you served, do you want to own house? At
some point, I suspect that that would stay pretty strong,
you know, I think so, I think it is pretty ingrained.
You know, maybe what we are seeing at the moment
is a bit of a shift away from wanting to
(10:31):
own investment property. I think there's still a strong desire
for people to get into their own house, you know,
get that security of tenure. I can't see that really
disappearing anytime soon. But what we are detecting in the
moment is maybe a bit of a shift in terms
of owning rental property. People going you know what, that's
that's not as not as easy a business as it
(10:51):
once might have been. If capital growth has slowed down
in future, it's harder to get the same return. More
investment options on the table in terms of simple ways
of a new and shares, these sorts of things. So
we might be seeing a shift there there. We're only
going to know in due course when we can look
back in hindsight, But just at the moment, there does
seem to be a web bit of a mentality shift
(11:12):
going on there, So that could be something that I
could definitely subscribe to. But does the desire to own
your own house to live in change much? They're not
so sure.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, this is something actually quite interesting I found. The
report also found that two in three property owners have
made some kind of sustainability upgrade. Talk me through that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, so we looked here, So this is for people
obviously who have already bought a property. Are they Are
they thinking about things like solar panels, insulation, these sorts
of things. We split it into sort of major categories.
You put solar panels in there, as opposed to sort
of more minor categories like I guess putting you know,
seales around your doors, this sort of thing. So you know,
(11:55):
there's a scale question here, but yeah, certainly a high
proportion of current homeowners have either taken steps to improve
the so called sustainability of their property or intend to
quite a strong proportion as well, looking to make changes
within the next sort of year or two. So that's
a good thing. It's actually the intent to do that
is stronger at the younger generations. So when you get
(12:17):
into the sort of gen z's and millennials, that intent
or desire to improve the sustainability is actually stronger. Now
there might be a cost factor there, a financial hurdle,
but at least the intent is there, So yeah, it
has to be a good thing. We know there's certain
in some of our older properties around the country there's
(12:38):
going to be issues with quality. You see all the
surveys around mold and sthma issues and all these sorts
of things. So improving the quality of their housing stock
is a pretty big deal as well. So that's encouraging
and that's something we can probably look at more and
sort of future surveys too. Well.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It would make sense, right because these are probably the
generations that have lived in a damp, moldy house and
paid five hundred dollars for a room for the privilege
of doing it. So when they've got their own space,
they would probably want to alleviate that and never live
in that kind of situation again, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, that's presumably going to be part of the motivation
for moving into owner occupation. It's potentially being able to
get into a house you can renovate if you like
painting whatever color you want to. These sorts of things.
I suppose one thing to point out about the rental
market at the moment is that there aren't going to
be quality issues still, but we've got the healthy home standards,
(13:34):
so at least that's going to have improved on average
the quality of rental properties around things like making sure
you've got to heat pump's ventilation, these sorts of things.
So there have been positive steps on that front, and
at the moment probably the rental markets tilted in favor
of tenants. Really there's the rents or either flat to
falling in a lot of the parts of the country,
(13:55):
and there's decent levels of choice, So you know, I
suppose I just say, if people are not so comfortable
in the current situation, there may well be some more
choice out there, and shopping around right now as a
tenant's probably not the worst idea. And also in the
owner occupation market, it's a buyers market too, there's a
lot of listings out there. At the moment, things are
(14:15):
probably in favor of tenants and in favor of buyers
a little bit against landlords and property owners. So there's
this kind of window there. I guess where it's you
don't always see it. Like this, but just at the moment,
we're in a sort of favorable market for those groups.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And some people might be listening to this and thinking,
why does it matter so much that women own less
homes than men? Why are we talking about it? Why
is it such a big deal? But I guess what
I want to know is what are the long term
economic risks if younger women, say gen Z millennials, continue
to lag behind in the home ownership space.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, what it's really to do with, I mean, earlier
access to property or any assets in general. Really, earlier investment,
earlier timing of starting to build wealth is going to
be beneficial in the long term. I mean it's not
just in the sort of straightforward sense of that, you know,
the sooner you start building as sets, the more you
have later, but also sort of compounds and you can
(15:15):
open up more opportunities for yourself as you start to
build that set base. So yeah, I think it's around that.
Not necessarily property. I mean, as I say, people, people
are buying all sorts of different things. We're a property
data company, so we look at it from a property angle,
but it can be any sort of set really, And
so it's about I think building that asset based soon,
creating more opportunities later in life, those sort of positive
(15:38):
things as well as there are non monetary benefits too,
as we've talked about, I've having a security of tenure
and props having a property that's of slightly high quality.
You can put on the solar panels if you want,
So it's around that, and you know, we know that
for whatever reason, I mean, the legacy things, the ingrained
mentality of buying property, it has been a strong source
(15:59):
of wealth and income and retirement. So that may shift
over time potentially, but for right now it's still a
pretty strong source, so that the earlier people can tap
into that the better. And that applies regardless of male
or female. But as the survey shows, females are legging
behind on that ownership start right now, so improving that
(16:19):
we'll have all sorts of benefits for all of us.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Thanks for joining us, Calvin, no worries.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels Caine Dicky is
our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and
our executive producer is Jane Ye. Follow the front page
(16:52):
on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts,
and join us next time for another look beyond the headlines.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Four
Kilda.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. New figures
show New Zealand women are significantly underrepresented in property ownership.
More than half of gen Z men and two thirds
(00:26):
of millennial men own the home they live in. That's
compared to the female figures of about a third and
under half, respectively. Today on the Front Page, Cotality and
Z's chief property economist, Kelvin Davidson is with us to
discuss what's contributing to this discrepancy and how we might
be able to fix it. So Kelvin, the report shows
(00:52):
a significant ownership gap between men and women, especially among
younger generations. The most striking factor is contributing to this,
do you think yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I think it's really comes down to two things, and
the first thing is going to be income. We know
there's a gender wage gap. Unfortunately across New Zealand. It
has closed and if you go back sort of three
five years something like that, it was about a nine
percent wage gap. So so female is getting paid about
nine percent less for a very similar job. That gap
has closed five percent, So that's good, but obviously more
(01:27):
needs to be done. A survey shows that smaller proportion
of females earned say more than one hundred thousand, there's
some kind of benchmark. Whichever wage you look at, there
are lower proportions of females earning that wage. So I
think it's reflecting financial resources. It's that wage gap, it's
lower salaries for similar work and just generally overall income
(01:49):
is a bit lower. So that's going to be a
restraint in terms of property ownership. It's going to be
harder to afford a property. But there's the surveys also
telling us there's perhaps some I don't think it's education
gets necessarily, but just the sort of information gap in
the sense of understanding the homeboying process. There's about sixteen
percent of female respondents. Of those females we haven't owned
(02:11):
a property or don't own a property now, about sixteen
percent said they just didn't know whe'd start, and there
was about six percent for males. So you know, those
figures aren't massive, but it's quite it's a reasonable gap
between male and female I guess sort of understanding of
the home buying process. So, yeah, if we can fix
the income GEP, if we can, I guess better target
(02:33):
educational processes around home buying. That will all help make
a difference, and I hope we can make progress over
the medium term in.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Terms of how this survey is conducted. I know one
thing that people may point out is like, well, you know,
in a couple, the house might be under a man's name.
Would that take Is that taken into account when getting
these results?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah? I mean that will be an issue for some respondents,
but I guess we're simply asking people do their own property?
Do they not? Why don't they if they don't these
sorts of things. I suspect that, you know, okay, technically
in some cases that it might be the man's name
on the title. There were cases where I guess it's
(03:19):
only the women's name on the title as well, so
it could go both ways. But I suspect in most cases,
even if it is only the man's name on the
title in a male female partnership and obviously a very
different type of multiple different types there, But in a
male female partnership, even if it is the man's name
on the title, I suspect the female respondent would probably
(03:42):
still say, yep, I own the property, even if technically
if you went right into the records the title, it
might tell you something different. So I suspect that's probably
not a big deal. It may be an issue in
some cases, but I don't think it would be a
game changer for the overall results.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
In terms of perhaps support. What would that look like
and whose responsibility do you think it falls on?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Well? I mean everyone, really, you know, there's this I
suppose it's easy in this issue and these sorts of
issues to point fingers that that you know, men point
fingers at women. I'm in In the end, it's it's
it's on everyone to improve these issues, whether whether that's
a female already on an executive or a male already
on an executive. You know, it's it's really down to everyone,
(04:26):
I think. And I think there's obviously a greater awareness
of the issues here, and it's not just in relation
to property, but just in relation to the workplace in general.
You know, there's there's issues here to be fixed. So
I think it's on everyone, really, and anything government can
do to improve those those sorts of roles as well
would be a good thing. And so, okay, one of
(04:47):
those things progress made, but more to do.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
In terms of getting onto the property ladder. I mean,
the barriers are getting higher and higher, right, no matter
what gender you are or how you identify. I mean,
it used to be like, well, rent it costs the
same amount as a mortgage, so why don't we just
invest in a house and get a property or something.
But it's really not the case these days.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Hey yeah, I mean so definitely not saying that buying
a property is easy by any means. It's still expensive.
There's still a lot of challenges there. What we have seen, though,
if you look at housing affordability measures, certainly over the
past three or four years, is that it has got easier.
I'm not saying it's easy, but it has got easy year.
I mean, house prices are down nationally eighteen percent from
the peak, interest rates have fallen a lot in the
(05:30):
past couple of years, and of course in the meantime
incomes have gone up. So if you look at i
fairly standard measure of affordability such as new mortgage payments,
is there as a share of household income that's now
pretty much back down to its average. So it started
from a very stretch Levelso all it's done is really
returned to average. But that's still a big improvement on
(05:50):
where it was. And you know, if you use average
as a measure of normality, well you could probably say
it's relatively normal now. It hasn't gone below average. It's
not screaming only cheap, but things are a lot easier
than they have been. And you know, this finance available
for people if they can satisfy certain serviceability criteria. There
is finance available at the banks. That's that's not an issue.
(06:13):
So yeah, there are reasonable conditions out there for buyers
at the moment. Gain not saying it's easy. Were regardless
of female, male, it's still a challenge to buy that
fairst property. But I think it always has been, you know,
and you can look at different challenges through time. Maybe
perhaps house prices were a lot lower in nineteen eighty,
but also interest rates we're a heck of a lot higher,
(06:33):
and some sometimes in the past, so there's always swings
aroundabout So I think it's never easy, but at least
we have seen some improvement and housing affordability, and I
think there's every reason to think that that stays around
for a while because you look at things like land supply.
At the moment, the government's pushing really hard on regulatory
change for more houses, and we have seen good progress
(06:55):
on that actually in the last couple of years that
the stock of physical housing has risen relative to populations.
So I think there's reasonable cause for optimism there. I
think it has to stick through the political cycle. Of course,
who knows what's going to happen later in the year.
But yeah, there's the government's government's pushing very hard and
land supply hopefully getting that up that will have a
favorable impact on affordability too. So I'm a sort of
(07:18):
I'm fairly optimistic on that one.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
What I'm getting from that is that I need to
stop ordering takeout because it really is doable and possible.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I'm not going to
dip into the sort of trouble CEF lending rules that
were around a while ago where banks were scrutinizing the
sort of Netflix and what was it Evcado and Toast and.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Things were too.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, but now those rules have relaxed now, and that
was a good good thing because they were overly stringent.
But yeah, I mean, each to their own that there's
no financial advice here anything, and people make their own decisions.
But what we are seeing in the market at the
moment is the first time buyers are very active, running
at a record numbers in fact of market share. Now
(08:01):
in a busier market as well. That's more deals too,
so so first time buyers are really active. I mean
lower interest rates out which are lower house prices help,
I should say, as well as tapping in the KII
savor that's a support. There is always that, I guess,
non monetary incentive of security of tenure, you know, getting
into a getting into an owner occupied property. Now I'm
(08:24):
not I'm not against renting by any means. I think
it's a it's a it's a great option that you
look at a lot of countries around the world most
people actually rent, and they're not they're not they're not
poor countries, they're not on a path to oblivion or
anything that you're talking here. Countries like Germany, like Switzerland,
you know most people rent there and you know they
do pretty well. So renting is not not a bad things.
(08:52):
I'm a woman, I'm learning this. That's a lot. When
it's not an investment that me and my longtime boyfriends
are going into together. People just continue to assume and
say that we bought it together. At the end of
the day, it's not this huge issue, but I thought
it was something that is interesting to look at, analyze
and talk about because I believe that more and more
(09:14):
women should be doing what I'm doing, which is making
their own investments apart from their family, apart from their mothers,
their fathers, their boyfriends, their husbands, because at the end
of the day, we don't live in a world that
really puts us first, so we have to put ourselves
first sometimes we are.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So we are very trends fixed on home ownership in
this country, and it's something that we've talked about on
this podcast time and time again. Do you think that
will ever shift or is that just the way it
is here?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Well, I mean it does seem pretty ingrained. I mean,
and we have seen over time that his affordability has
got more challenging, that home ownership right has come down.
But I think there's a distinction to we made here
between I guess what people would would like to happen
and what can happen your choice first necessities thing. And
you know, even though the home ownership rate has come
(10:09):
down in some cases, that won't be a choice. It's
just simply the tousing's got less affordable over time. And
so I suspect if you said to people you know
that you served, do you want to own house? At
some point, I suspect that that would stay pretty strong,
you know, I think so, I think it is pretty ingrained.
You know, maybe what we are seeing at the moment
is a bit of a shift away from wanting to
(10:31):
own investment property. I think there's still a strong desire
for people to get into their own house, you know,
get that security of tenure. I can't see that really
disappearing anytime soon. But what we are detecting in the
moment is maybe a bit of a shift in terms
of owning rental property. People going you know what, that's
that's not as not as easy a business as it
(10:51):
once might have been. If capital growth has slowed down
in future, it's harder to get the same return. More
investment options on the table in terms of simple ways
of a new and shares, these sorts of things. So
we might be seeing a shift there there. We're only
going to know in due course when we can look
back in hindsight, But just at the moment, there does
seem to be a web bit of a mentality shift
(11:12):
going on there, So that could be something that I
could definitely subscribe to. But does the desire to own
your own house to live in change much? They're not
so sure.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, this is something actually quite interesting I found. The
report also found that two in three property owners have
made some kind of sustainability upgrade. Talk me through that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, so we looked here, So this is for people
obviously who have already bought a property. Are they Are
they thinking about things like solar panels, insulation, these sorts
of things. We split it into sort of major categories.
You put solar panels in there, as opposed to sort
of more minor categories like I guess putting you know,
seales around your doors, this sort of thing. So you know,
(11:55):
there's a scale question here, but yeah, certainly a high
proportion of current homeowners have either taken steps to improve
the so called sustainability of their property or intend to
quite a strong proportion as well, looking to make changes
within the next sort of year or two. So that's
a good thing. It's actually the intent to do that
is stronger at the younger generations. So when you get
(12:17):
into the sort of gen z's and millennials, that intent
or desire to improve the sustainability is actually stronger. Now
there might be a cost factor there, a financial hurdle,
but at least the intent is there, So yeah, it
has to be a good thing. We know there's certain
in some of our older properties around the country there's
(12:38):
going to be issues with quality. You see all the
surveys around mold and sthma issues and all these sorts
of things. So improving the quality of their housing stock
is a pretty big deal as well. So that's encouraging
and that's something we can probably look at more and
sort of future surveys too. Well.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It would make sense, right because these are probably the
generations that have lived in a damp, moldy house and
paid five hundred dollars for a room for the privilege
of doing it. So when they've got their own space,
they would probably want to alleviate that and never live
in that kind of situation again, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, that's presumably going to be part of the motivation
for moving into owner occupation. It's potentially being able to
get into a house you can renovate if you like
painting whatever color you want to. These sorts of things.
I suppose one thing to point out about the rental
market at the moment is that there aren't going to
be quality issues still, but we've got the healthy home standards,
(13:34):
so at least that's going to have improved on average
the quality of rental properties around things like making sure
you've got to heat pump's ventilation, these sorts of things.
So there have been positive steps on that front, and
at the moment probably the rental markets tilted in favor
of tenants. Really there's the rents or either flat to
falling in a lot of the parts of the country,
(13:55):
and there's decent levels of choice, So you know, I
suppose I just say, if people are not so comfortable
in the current situation, there may well be some more
choice out there, and shopping around right now as a
tenant's probably not the worst idea. And also in the
owner occupation market, it's a buyers market too, there's a
lot of listings out there. At the moment, things are
(14:15):
probably in favor of tenants and in favor of buyers
a little bit against landlords and property owners. So there's
this kind of window there. I guess where it's you
don't always see it. Like this, but just at the moment,
we're in a sort of favorable market for those groups.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And some people might be listening to this and thinking,
why does it matter so much that women own less
homes than men? Why are we talking about it? Why
is it such a big deal? But I guess what
I want to know is what are the long term
economic risks if younger women, say gen Z millennials, continue
to lag behind in the home ownership space.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, what it's really to do with, I mean, earlier
access to property or any assets in general. Really, earlier investment,
earlier timing of starting to build wealth is going to
be beneficial in the long term. I mean it's not
just in the sort of straightforward sense of that, you know,
the sooner you start building as sets, the more you
have later, but also sort of compounds and you can
(15:15):
open up more opportunities for yourself as you start to
build that set base. So yeah, I think it's around that.
Not necessarily property. I mean, as I say, people, people
are buying all sorts of different things. We're a property
data company, so we look at it from a property angle,
but it can be any sort of set really, And
so it's about I think building that asset based soon,
creating more opportunities later in life, those sort of positive
(15:38):
things as well as there are non monetary benefits too,
as we've talked about, I've having a security of tenure
and props having a property that's of slightly high quality.
You can put on the solar panels if you want,
So it's around that, and you know, we know that
for whatever reason, I mean, the legacy things, the ingrained
mentality of buying property, it has been a strong source
(15:59):
of wealth and income and retirement. So that may shift
over time potentially, but for right now it's still a
pretty strong source, so that the earlier people can tap
into that the better. And that applies regardless of male
or female. But as the survey shows, females are legging
behind on that ownership start right now, so improving that
(16:19):
we'll have all sorts of benefits for all of us.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Thanks for joining us, Calvin, no worries.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels Caine Dicky is
our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and
our executive producer is Jane Ye. Follow the front page
(16:52):
on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts,
and join us next time for another look beyond the headlines.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Four
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