The survey found 63 per cent of baby boomers worry about younger generations getting on the housing ladder.

Baby boomers are concerned younger New Zealanders cannot afford their first home.

Research by Canstar found 63 per cent of baby boomers worried about younger generations getting on the housing ladder, while only 51 per cent of Generation Y (born in the 1980s and 90s) worried about it.

Baby boomers were also concerned about the housing shortage, with 65 per cent wanting more houses to be built.



BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander said the survey proved older New Zealanders did not want the housing market to be unaffordable.



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"We're seeing the lowest interest rates on term deposits since the 1960s, and high local authority rates rising at three times the rate of inflation, which is exactly the opposite of what the boomers want," he said.

CAMERON BURNELL/STUFF BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander says the latest Canstar survey shows baby boomers never wanted house prices to skyrocket.

"Baby boomers are used to an environment where housing supply grew very strongly in the 1970s, then for a while in the 1990s. So they'll be attuned to thinking more houses keep prices suppressed."

Alexander said blaming others for unaffordable housing was an age-old reaction to try and explain the unexplainable.

"People always hope there is some sort of magic bullet that can deliver housing affordability, but there isn't one," he said.

"Our minds don't like being stressed so when a thing is happening and we can't understand why it's happening our mind makes us gravitate towards simple solutions.

"In the old days we said the crop is failing it must be a witch, or the gods are angry, and then your stress goes down because there's someone to blame.

"With property market growth we say these prices can't continue, it's a bubble, it's a bubble. Then around the same time, it's the Chinese, they're the problem.

"Then it must be a shortage of land, and then two or three years ago, it's the baby boomers. We gravitate towards easy answers."

The survey of more than 2500 people also found 51 per cent of boomers and 42 per cent of Generation Y wanted a more robust tax structure for taxing investment properties.

Canstar general manager Jose George said: "This survey shows that this is not simply an Auckland centric problem and we shouldn't think that reducing or scrapping loan-to-value ratio (LVR) restrictions for first time buyers offers a silver bullet".

"What is also interesting was the attitude towards property and tax with a more robust structure around tax and investment properties being by far the most popular option even amongst the generations who are more likely to own investment properties."

Younger generations felt more strongly about property only being available to New Zealand residents and Alexander said this wasn't surprising.

"Over the last two decades we've had an internationalisation of the world housing market, so one reason housing prices versus incomes are so much higher than three or four decades ago is there are buyers from others countries that see other country's houses as an asset class like share or bonds or term deposits," he said.