The availability, suitability, habitability and affordability of housing has one of the biggest impacts on the wellbeing of households and families.

Unaffordable housing has the potential to limit the choices available and to create undesirable living conditions such as crowding, particularly for low income earners, and to have flow-on effects on health, education, and community wellbeing.

Topic

Status

Key findings
Affordability of housing costs Increasing trendIncreasingTrend When asked if housing costs were affordable, 27% of respondents disagreed in 2018. This has fallen from 42% in 2014. Further information.
Affordability index Fluctuating trend
FluctuatingTrend
 Christchurch is recognised as one of the more affordable major cities in New Zealand, in regards to house price. Further information.
Housing costs by tenure Snapshot
SnapshotOnly
 Nationally, those who own (or partly own) their own dwelling spend a lower proportion of their income on housing. Further information.

Affordability of housing costs

The Quality of Life survey asks respondents about how affordable their overall housing costs are (things like rent, rates, house insurance and house maintenance).

Between 2014 and 2018, there was a large increase in the proportion who agreed or strongly agreed that their housing costs are affordable, increasing from 43% to 56%. Nationally, 47% of respondents thought their housing costs were affordable in 2018.

There was a corresponding decrease in those who disagreed or strongly disagreed, falling from 42% to 27% over the four-year period.

Affordability index

Christchurch is recognised as one of the more affordable major cities in New Zealand in regards to house price. The median house price in Christchurch is currently below the New Zealand median house price, as well as below Wellington and Auckland's median prices.

This is demonstrated by the Massey University Housing Affordability Index(external link), which is based upon house prices, wage levels and the cost of borrowing within respective cities. 

Housing costs by tenure

Households living in dwellings in which they own (or partly own) spend a lower proportion of their income on housing costs (which include rents, mortgages, property rates and build-related insurance).

In 2017, almost 80 % of households living in dwellings that they owned spent less than one quarter of their income on housing costs.

In contrast, only 54 % of households living in dwellings that they did not own (e.g. rented dwellings) spent less than one quarter of their income on housing costs. Almost 20 % of households living in rented dwellings spent 40 % or more of their income on housing, compared with 7.5 % of households living in dwellings that they owned.

 

Further information

Please email monitor@ccc.govt.nz for further information.

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