P??
Planned shows may be canned
ASHBURTON
www.guardianonline.co.nz
Methven building boom P3
P4 Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Since Sept 27, 1879
Retail $1.50 Home delivered from 95c
BY SUE NEWMAN
SUE.N@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
Housing affordability in the Ashburton District has remained unchanged over the past eight years even as wider Canterbury became increasingly unaffordable. In the gap between the 2006 Census and last year’s Census, wages and house prices rose at almost the same rate, 37 per cent. Census 2006 gave the median household income as $46,000; in last year’s Census this had risen to $63,100. Over the same period, the median house price quoted by the Real Estate Institute rose from $216,000 in December 2006 to $294,000 in December last year. Using the housing affordability formula of household income against house price, the district’s affordability ranking remained at 4.6, below the national average of 5.1. On the Demographia International Housing Affordability scale Ashburton and New Zealand as a whole is in the “seriously unaffordable” bracket, particularly for first-home buyers, but that’s not the sole factor keeping new entrants out of the housing market, says Ray White Ashburton franchisee Jill Quaid. She believes that for many young people looking for
their first home, unrealistic expectations were the biggest stumbling block to home ownership. Tougher rules around bank lending limiting the number of loans made to people with less than 20 per cent deposit, had some impact on potential buyers, but a reluctance to buy cheaper, older homes was creating a big disconnect between what young buyers wanted and what they could afford, Mrs Quaid said. “They don’t want cheaper housing, they want close to the best. We still have plenty of good homes in the $230,000 to $250,000 bracket but they want en-suites. They want good homes, they’re not interested in bungalows or in renovating, they want it all at the start.” While housing affordability might be an indicator of where the market was sitting, Mrs Quaid said the Ashburton market still offered good options for buyers at all levels – providing they were realistic. There were good, three-bedroom homes on the market in Ashburton on decent sized sections that could be bought for $250,000, but young couples wanting to enter the market at the new home end would be paying double that for a new build and a section.
u H
or Menz f t f i g S e h g
ed
Ashburton still deemed unaffordable
THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
Members of the Ashburton Menz Shed have been given engineering machinery and tools from the family of the late Charles Eaden. FULL STORY
P4
Ph 03 307 7900 to subscribe!
Weather: High 8˚ - Overnight -3˚ Page 26
Puzzles: Page 25
Television: Page 27
Family Notices: Page 26
www.guardianonline.co.nz