So the much-anticipated Housing reset has arrived.
The first thing it tells you is what a brain dead lot we have running the country. Megan Woods said the target of 100,000 houses in ten years was overly ambitious. Wow! What a eureka moment. It’s taken them all of two years to work that out. She said it meant houses were built in places with little demand. That in itself is a hugely damning admission. Taken at face value that means that without doing any proper work on how Kiwibuild might effectively help those it was supposedly designed for, houses were just being plonked anywhere so as to meet the 100,000 target. What did they think they were doing? Playing Monopoly. This is the height of irresponsibility. The money being used is our money, taxpayers money, not Monopoly paper money.
According to Woods, the government is going to build as many houses as they can as fast as they can using a housing dashboard. What is that? A dashboard taken from a car with the speedometer still attached and a Monopoly house added every time they manage to build one? These idiots really don’t have a clue. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
She’s announced a “progressive homeownership” initiative (don’t they just love that word progressive) using $400 million of reallocated Kiwibuild funds whereby up to 4,000 households could be supported into home ownership. I wonder where they got that figure from? This would be through a rent-to-buy or shared equity scheme. Good idea in theory but how well has this been thought through by the Labour party’s brainless trust? What happens, for example, if the person wants to move on from the house for whatever reason? So that’s another $400 million of our money at risk, is it?
Woods says a rent-to-buy scheme is where a person is given a discounted rent in order for them to save to buy the house. Another example of hopeless left-wing thinking. Here’s some free advice for Ms Woods. Charge them the full amount and deduct a certain amount each week which is a form of compulsory saving. Otherwise, what guarantee is there they are saving and not just taking advantage of cheap rent. This is like the university subsidy all over again. These people never learn.
Family and friends will be able to pool their respective $10,000 First Home Grant and KiwiSaver to buy their first home. Family and friends? All very cosy but what happens if there’s a subsequent falling out? According to Marama Davidson there is also a plan where people can own part of a house. Which part? The garage, the loo, the lounge room? God knows how that might work. There are, I might add some saner suggestions in the reset in regards to making money easier to obtain for those first home buyers and those I support.
As a footnote, an article in a newspaper quoted Ms Woods as saying Kiwibuild is a “leaver” (note the spelling) not an outcome. It could well be the former as per the spelling but most definitely not the latter.