The government has made important changes to its KiwiSaverHomeStart scheme as part of its comprehensive plan to address housing issues. The government has increased the income and house price caps of the KiwiSaverHomeStart scheme to ensure it meets its objectives of helping New Zealanders buy their first home.
KiwiSaverHomeStart is about helping first-home buyers pull together a deposit with a grant for a couple of up to $10,000 for an existing house and $20,000 for a new home. We are adjusting the income and house price caps to take into account increases in both since the scheme was announced.
The income caps increased on Monday, August 1, from $80,000 to $85,000 for a single person and from $120,000 to $130,000 for a couple.
The house price caps have increased from the $350,000, $450,000 and $550,000 depending on region to $400,000, $500,000 and $600,000 for an existing home, and to $450,000, $550,000 and $650,000 for a new home.
This reflects the $50,000 increase in the national median house price since the scheme began. We are deliberately increasing the cap for new homes by an additional $50,000 to help drive growth in a new residential building.
The house caps of $600,000 existing/$650,000 new apply to Auckland, the $500,000 existing/$550,000 new applies to those areas gazetted in Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, Tauranga, Queenstown, Nelson, Tasman and Selwyn, and the $400,000 existing/$450,000 new to the other areas of New Zealand.
These increases will also be applied to the Welcome Home loans. These loans enable first home buyers to buy with a 10 per cent deposit and because they are government guaranteed are exempt from the loan-to-value (LVR) ratio limits from the Reserve Bank.
The answer to New Zealand’s long-term housing challenges is a wide programme of reform of which KiwiSaverHomeStart and the Welcome Home loan scheme are just a part. We are reforming New Zealand’s planning system, building laws, investing in record numbers of apprenticeships, supporting councils with infrastructure costs and directly building homes through the Crown land housing programme.
The Green Party wants to reduce house prices over time by 50 per cent. Labour has said they would not support that.
How does this work alongside their so-called pre-election “Coalition Agreement” which they said at the time was something new and refreshing for NZ politics? In fact, their so-called coalition agreement is turning out to have been a media stunt and a very cynical electoral deal for votes – nothing at all to do with being honest with New Zealanders before they vote as to what a Green-Lab government would actually do in government.
This is not the first time that Labour and the Greens have talked to each other—for example, Auckland’s urban limit, which Labour wants to scrap but the Greens want to keep. And it almost certainly won’t be the last time it happens either.