Auckland is the most expensive place to own a home, and to rent one.

Renters suffered under escalating rents in 2019, while homeowners saw their housing costs dip as home loan interest rates dipped.

Renters were around twice as likely to spend 40 per cent or more of their disposable incomes on housing costs, figures released by Statistics New Zealand showed.



"While rents increased, and mortgage interest payments and property rates decreased, overall housing costs remained unchanged," income and poverty statistics manager Chris Pooch said.

While the amount households spent on housing rose 0.6 per cent in the 12 months to the end of June, compared to the preceding 12-month period, rents were up by 2.5 per cent, he said.

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A big factor feeding into the relative improvement in housing costs for homeowners was a 9.6 per cent decrease in interest payments on home loans.

But with house prices remaining high, and rents continuing to rise, a large proportion of people saw a big chunk of their incomes disappear into the mortgage, or landlords' pockets.



Nearly a third of households spent 30 percent or more of their total household income on housing costs.



Just under 28 per cent of renting households spent 40 percent or more of their household income on rent and other housing costs, said Pooch.

In contrast, about 12.6 per cent of people who owned, or partly owned, their own home spent 40 per cent or more of their household income on housing costs."



The annual average household disposable income for New Zealand households was $81,934.

Households in Auckland spend more of their disposable incomes on housings than in other parts of the country.

Stats NZ's figures come hard on the heels of a report from the Helen Clark Foundation blaming property investors for high house prices.

The report's author Jenny McArthur said a "decades-long boom in property investment" had driven up housing and land prices to create "windfall gains" for property owners, the real estate sector, and banks.

The Helen Clark Foundation is an independent public policy think tank located at the Auckland University of Technology.

She said the current situation was failing younger generations, single-parent households, Pacific Islanders, and Māori.

To help address that, the report recommends targeted funding, finance, and capacity development for developing papakāinga on Māori land.

PHIL WALTER/GETTY IMAGES Kiwibuild has not delivered the affordable homes Auckland needs.

It also suggests that urban planning should identify places where the market cannot provide affordable housing and deliver it directly with Urban Development Authorities (UDAs), transferring the completed homes to hapū or community land trusts.

"Policies to curb speculation, including the bright-line test and foreign buyer ban, have not sufficiently addressed the problem of local investors who are actively bidding up prices," the report said.

"The present situation is socially and economically unsustainable, with profound impacts on health, education and social cohesion," McArthur said.

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