Southern incomes rise but housing still unaffordable

Incomes appear to have kept pace with rising housing costs in the South before Covid hit, but only just.

Information released by Statistics New Zealand (Stats NZ) yesterday showed Auckland and Wellington incomes — after housing costs — had increased, but nowhere else had they gained enough to make a significant difference, University of Otago, Wellington senior research fellow Lucy Telfar Barnard said.

Income was tracking vaguely in the right direction in Otago and Southland at the time of the lockdown.

But due to rising housing costs, quality of life was no better before the pandemic, Dr Telfar Barnard said.

The average annual household adjusted income — after housing costs — was $36,064 for Otago compared with $33,567 in 2018-19.

And further south, it crept from $35,436 in 2018-19 in Southland to $37,858 in 2020 before Covid-19 hit.

"The affordability crisis in Otago continues," Dr Telfar Barnard said yesterday.

"We don’t know yet, we can’t tell from this data, what effect Covid had on any of this.

"And we do know that house prices have continued to soar through the pandemic."

Housing before the pandemic remained unaffordable for many New Zealanders.

In March 2020, 26.5% of people who did not own their own homes were spending an unaffordable amount of their income — more than 40% — on housing.

For homeowners, though, that number was only 11.6%.

The data in yesterday’s release did not reflect how Covid-19 affected household incomes, housing costs or material wellbeing because the data covered a period before lockdown.

Nevertheless, in the year before the lockdown hit, for every $100 a household spent on average, $21 was spent on housing costs, about the same as 2019, Stats NZ said.

At the same time the measure it used for inequality was more or less unchanged from 2019, it said.

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz