Heather du Plessis-Allan: Social housing must take priority over the First Home Buyers Grant

Now, on this decision by the Government to cut the First Home Buyers Grant in order to put the money into social housing instead- 

I've got to be honest, on principle, it's not the kind of thing I love. Because I'd personally much rather the Government give a helping hand to Kiwis trying to do the right thing rather than constantly bailing out the delinquents.

But in this one respect, I think they’re prioritising the right thing.

Because we have got a massive social housing crisis. And we cannot ignore this.

We have 25,000 on the waiting list to get into a house, that's why we have people crammed into emergency housing in the middle of our biggest cities, it's why we had huge numbers of Rotorua's motels converted into emergency housing.

We've got to fix that, as a priority. Because if we don't, it's only going to create a ripple effect of bigger and bigger social problems that come from people living in motels with other delinquents rather than houses.

And also, the First Home Grant is actually a low value scheme. All it gives a person is $5,000. In the scheme of how big a deposit has to be, that's pretty small.

I'm sure it helps, every little bit helps, but it’s not significant.

Back in 2010, when it was first brought in, it was significant. According to Government figures, the lower quartile house price was $255,000. That same house is worth $580,000.

What that means is, the grant has gone from nearly 10 percent of a standard deposit to just over 4 percent. That's pretty small.

If we want this scheme to actually be significant, we’d have to at least double what we’re handing out, which means finding a lot of money we don't have.

As it stands, first home buyers actually have the bets shot at buying a house right now - they have the least competition they’ve had in ages. And so right now, they probably need this money less than they have before.

On the other hand, social housing is the worst it's been in ages, if not ever. So it's got to be the priority.

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