Ashley Church: Property commentator on 59% of kiwis 'dream-scrolling'

New data from Trade Me suggests 59% of kiwis are “dream scrolling” - scrolling through property listings out of their price range. 

38% would rather do it than watch rugby, and 12% would even prefer it over sex. 

Property commentator Ashley Church tells Heather du Plessis-Allan the dream scrolling is driven by escapism. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Everybody loves a bit of property porn, don't we We
all do, right, But do you love it this much?
According to new data, fifty nine percent of us are
doing what they call dream scrolling, twenty eight percent of
us are doing it every single week, thirty eight percent
of us would rather dream scroll than look at Rugby,
and twelve percent would prefer it over sex. Property commentator

(00:21):
Ashley Churches with me, Now, hey, Ashley, get a Heather.
I mean, you love the property porn of all the people.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Right interestingly prior to your producer ring you earlier today.
I don't think it's something I'd ever done other than
when I was actually seriously looking at By. And I
don't think I even just go online to have a look,
but I know people do, and I can kind of
understand what drives it. Escapism, yeah, a little bit of that.
And also I saw the stats and it indicated that

(00:47):
it's overwhelmingly people under thirty four, I think, or thirty nine.
So if you think about the cycle of life, Heather,
which you and I went through, sort of going through
your starting out, your first passion is getting your first home,
so you know you're looking to see what's available, what
the other guy's got, who's over the fence, and then
you get your first home, and then, as we're all

(01:08):
wont to do, because life's about competition, you're then looking
to see who's got something better than you, to see
whether or not there's something better out there than what
you've got. So I kind of get it, and yeah,
I guess that's what drives it.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
It feels to me like it's an activity that you
do when there is a change of life coming up, right,
So you need to buy your house, or maybe you
need to downscale, or maybe you're going to quit your
job and you want to do something else, move somewhere else.
That's when you start. For normal people, that's when you
start to your properly porn Yet.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I think so, I'm at the risk of being
hopelessly sexist. I think it probably depends on your gender
because I think with women, Yeah, I think with women
it's about you know, if you've got a baby coming
along or something's changing in your life, you're absolutely looking
for a bigger home. You're looking for a home it's
got somewhere the build a nursery. I think with guys
it's more likely to be not so much about the

(01:56):
house itself, but what the house, what the house is worth.
So so guys are looking to see what a better
house might cost relative to what they've currently got or
because the other thing I understand from the study is
quite common as people will look at their friends and
neighbors place as well and snoop on those. And again,
with women, it's looking to see what their friends and
neighbors have. With guys, it's looking to see what their
friends and neighbor's houses are worth. Now that's a huge generalization,

(02:19):
but I don't think it's unreasonable.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
If there was anything that you didn't Is there anything
you don't have in your house that you would dream
scroll for?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
I think I can honestly say no. I think I'm
going to point in my life where I'm actually pretty happy.
I live in a lovely spot on the beach here
in Hawk's Bay. But you know, maybe when I was younger,
maybe when I was younger, I might have had looked
to see if somebody had a pool or a spar
pool or something. But no, now I'm at a point
of life where I'm just pretty happy with what I have.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Beach and Hawkspace sounds awesome. Ashley thank you very much.
I don't think i'd want to look at anything else either.
That's actually church properly commentator. If I could, if I could,
I would. I just can't be naft moving though, like
really cannot like ever again. So I probably just have
the pool installed rather than going and buying a place
that had a pool. I think I've properly solved that problem.
I'm just going to get a pool when I'm rich.

(03:04):
I'm just going to put a pool in. I'm not
going to look at any more properties, because moving house,
what a ball ake.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
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