Interest rates biggest driver of affordability: Report

Council and Government initiatives to build affordable homes need to take into account the potential effect of rising interest rates, a new report says.

Thursday, October 9th 2014, 12:00AM

by The Landlord

The report, Auckland’s Housing Market: Spatial Trends in Dwelling Prices and Affordability for First Home Buyers, has been prepared by the Social and Economic Research Investigations and Monitoring Unit at Auckland Council.

It provided an analysis of trends in the city's house prices, and affordability, across different suburbs and timeframes.

The report found that in 2013, just under 40% of the city's house sales were affordable.

It defined affordable as when housing costs were less than 30% of a first-home buyer's household income - in this case, an employed couple aged between 25 and 34.

In 1999, 74% of Auckland's sales met those criteria but by 2013 that number had dropped to 39%.

Areas around Auckland's northern and western fringes experienced relative decreases in affordability compared to the city as a whole, the report said. Areas such as Helensville, Waiuku and Wellsford became relatively more affordable.

“These results suggest that the nature of housing affordability is complex and varies widely throughout Auckland and also over time,” the report said. “These findings have particularly important issues for the development and implementation of housing policy. In particular, the consistent variation in dwelling prices could affect the implementation of Special Housing Areas (SHAs) across Auckland. This is because the relative dwelling prices within a particular SHA could influence the timing and profitability of development. Therefore, it is important to recognise and take account of this variation during the implementation phase of the development.”

It found low interest rates had been the biggest driver of affordability in Auckland since the global financial crisis.

In 2007, only 20% of three-bedroom homes were sold at "affordable" prices. Ninety per cent of one-bedroom homes were affordable. Drops in interest rates since then had pushed 40% of three-bedroom sales into the affordable category and 60% of two-bedroom.

The report said: "This study indicates that the ratio measure of affordability is heavily influenced by interest rates. This means when using the ratio measure for policy setting, such as establishing the price for retained affordable housing, it would be important to conduct sensitivity testing to determine how much the affordability level is affected by short-term changes in interest rates."

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