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Feminism and Housing

Filed under: General — Downunder @ 11:37 am Fri 18th April 2014

We had a discussion (here) which essentially revolved around what contribution the DPB made to the current price of residential houses in New Zealand.

Whatever your views on the DPB, and regardless of the fact that there are some 100,000 DPB households spread across New Zealand I don’t consider that the DPB should be included in any explanation of the current high house-price situation we are experiencing. (That’s not to say, that the DPB should be excluded from arguments relating to housing or the cost of housing.)

Feminism has had a significant effect on housing in New Zealand but recognising this depends on where you hang your arguments.

Forty years ago a teenager leaving school would have looked first at getting a job, (which was relatively easy back then) marriage (the social norm), home ownership and a family. Life was fairly stable, most households were visibly Mum, Dad, and the kids and the quarter-acre section was still the Kiwi dream. Home ownership was high, desirable and encouraged.

Recently an overpriced housing market and election year have bought some debate around housing, in particular the rate of home-ownership which is now under 50% and declining.

We could look at this strictly from the current socio-economic thinking as some have and suggest;

  • Houses are increasingly unaffordable to first home buyers
  • House prices relative to income makes home ownership unaffordable
  • Mobility of the younger generation discourages ownership
  • Changing views on financial investment have people looking to other markets
  • But the question I want to ask, is how through the past forty years did we get from an encouraged high-level of home ownership to the seemingly irrelevant lowering level of home ownership?

    There has been a focus in Government agencies during this period, on legislation and policy that has resulted in a transfer of property ownership to women, and the DPB does factor in this.

    The process as I see it has revolved around relationship separations, where women have acquired ownership of the home. We know there are women who have made a lifestyle of attaching themselves to men solely for the purpose of obtaining ‘the relationship real estate’ or a share of it that they didn’t previously own.

    In other cases some men who have been earning well enough to fund the purchase of a house, through separation, have left one, two, sometimes more women as individual property owners (themselves eventually not a property owner). While these properties may have housed children for a period of time they have generally been a liability in terms of maintenance and funding and many will have been on-sold to avoid this.

    (I remember a while back a feminist based article that appeared in a British paper determining that a man should be regarded as worth up to thirty-three thousand pound a year when it came to reducing on-going household costs.)

    There is no doubt that the number of houses in individual female ownership will have spiralled upwards over the last 40 years. It would be interesting to see the percentage ratio of male to female ownership of the current forty-odd per cent left in the declining number of privately owned houses.

    I would also suggest that separation has increased the rate at which properties have appeared on the market, meaning that they would not have been available for sale had we not had the same level of relationship failure and manipulation. This coupled with housing being seen as a market (and becoming increasingly overpriced since the late 1980’s) has fuelled a transfer of houses to market oriented owners rather than being on sold to younger couples.

    Those houses not being immediately sold and leading to another common situation we see; the little old lady in the broken down house who can’t afford the rates – that and deceased estates also accommodate the same market forces.

    These things considered we should not expect any turn around in the declining rate of privately owned homes, without a change in social behaviour or market intervention.

    Beyond this there is also the trust factor. Does a man want to be in joint ownership of a property with a woman, when there is so little security around his share of the investment. Men have been, and continue to be the butt of feminist legal property-decisions when it comes to splitting relationship property. You are not only exposed to the wants of your ex but also the aggression of the state pursuing child support.

    The recent Sally Ridge trouncing whilst a hopeless case, was a good example of the blind female aggression, that would otherwise have succeeded in the Family Court.

    Now that we have been through forty years of this feminist assault on property ownership I would suggest it has played a major part in the decrease of private ownership of houses.

    So what advice does a father give his teenage son as he leaves school and heads out into the world as it is in the New Zealand today?

    6 Comments »

    1. As Mr Punch said [1915] to a young man contemplating matrimony “Don’t”.

      Comment by andrew — Fri 18th April 2014 @ 4:20 pm

    2. Just show him thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4
      A wise woman explains….

      Comment by Skeptic — Fri 18th April 2014 @ 4:46 pm

    3. https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/39327

      Some comments.
      As this looks like propaganda to me.

      “Government should instruct the Bank to reverse or amend its policy on Loan-to-Value-Ratio restrictions on mortgage deposits.
      Why? Because, in my opinion, these restrictions have created the single most significant barrier to young people buying their first home and have done more damage to the market than any other factor – including house price inflation.”

      Actually increasing the deposit, should lower the expected house price.
      So 20% for owner occupied, first home loans.
      And 40% for investors.
      Lowering the deposit, should raise the expected house price.
      Yet she calls price rises damage.

      This is bad, but secretly I want it.
      It’s how the bubble doesn’t pop, more money.
      More interesting to me is this.
      Some stupid human decided, investors could get loans.
      To buy houses.
      When the poor can’t afford to buy them.
      In a fair market.

      IE they are not actually investors.
      They just gamble with other peoples money.
      A real investor would buy the property outright.
      Or actually run a business, building homes.
      To sell, to supply the society, housing.

      “In the 70s and 80s New Zealand experienced crippling inflation which did huge damage to our economy.”

      Yes inflation can be very bad.
      Like rampant house price inflation.
      Shush, try and leave it out of inflation numbers.
      4 times faster rise than wages to pay the mortgages.
      1 to 3%, funny.
      Are humans blind?

      “Capital growth returns real value and wealth to the owner of a property whereas actual inflation is corrosive and destructive and eats away at the value of the money that we spend on goods and services.”

      No, no, and probably no.
      Capital growth?
      If I buy a can of baked beans fo $1.00
      Then tomorrow it goes up in price to $1.10
      Logically I made 10c.
      However it’s still just a can of baked beans.

      Capital growth is inflation.
      Real value, geez.
      It eats away at our wages.
      Inflation does the same.

      Growth only happens when prices are stable.
      And wages rise.
      Commodity per person increases.
      However that’s in effect also inflation.

      Only when nothing changes.
      Other than base commodity price falls.
      Is growth real.
      So mass manufacturing reduce real prices.
      Created real growth.

      A new house, takes away real farmland, or land from nature.
      So give and take away.

      “This meant that it was responsible with keeping the annual rate of inflation within an agreed range (currently 1% to 3%) and its success in doing this over the past 30+ years has become the stuff of legend.”

      Yes, property ‘investors got very rich’.
      Great for the housing industry.
      A legendary time.
      Of boom.
      And insane debts.

      “As a result, Kiwis have benefited from a level of price stability which has improved their standard of living and gradually increased our national wealth.”

      Yes, that ‘has’ to true.

      “But in the hands of the incompetents running our current economic sideshow – this stuff should send a shiver down the spine of every objective New Zealander.”

      It can’t get getter than that.
      Every New Zealander, run by incompetents.
      I like something they have done.

      They removed tax advantage investors had on loans.
      First home buyers pay tax on income, before there mortgage.
      IE pay tax on income, then pay the interest on the loan.
      Investors were deducting interest from income, before tax.
      A huge advantage for investors, and disadvantage to renters.
      Who can’t afford a deposit.
      But can afford the mortgage.

      To me.
      Housing is corrupted by greed.
      It cannot end well.

      I actually think the government made a just move.
      Low income first home buyers are more competitive.
      A good first step.
      Hopefully stoping price rises.
      Letting wages catch up.

      Interest rate rises are a big risk.
      As too much money printing is happening.

      If a person makes a dollar, a person lost a dollar.
      In a real balanced economy.

      My opinion is build up.

      Put a pin in a map.
      Everything must be 100m tall, or more.
      Within 500m.
      And 50m plus tall within 1km.

      Next pin, next pin.

      Comment by DJ Ward — Tue 27th April 2021 @ 8:31 pm

    4. What is the feminist ideal about housing.
      Matriarchal judgement, may be measured, by the house.
      Even it’s tidiness.
      A status symbol.
      The demand, being perfect houses.
      Males not immune, of the expectation, of providing one.

      Is the demand for perfect homes, interfering in house building.
      Certainly our motels, have many homeless.
      Certainly many live in cars, and on the street.

      Government has failed then.
      High aspirations, failing the poor.
      What then would be the opposite, of what they are doing.

      https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/300449002/iconic-1970s-capsule-tower-in-tokyo-to-be-bulldozed

      I don’t advocate spaces so small, or without patios.
      But the idea is simple.
      A small variety of capsules.
      That can be factory built, for many towers.
      And put together, like a 3D puzzle.

      None will sate the demands, of feminism.
      The capsules looked down at.
      Perfect however, for the single male, with no options.
      I doubt the need will ever go away.

      Is it the governments role to create a society, of perfect houses.
      Or that the poor, the displaced, have at least the basics, available.
      That there, is no emergency, with housing.
      Perfection, unobtainable.
      Even the perfect house, in 50 years.
      Will fail, feminisms new expectations.

      Comment by DJ Ward — Mon 8th November 2021 @ 3:17 pm

    5. The government is failing the working class.

      https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/housing-affordability/300415265/mega-landlords-over-22100-homes-owned-by-small-group-of-very-large-investors

      It is not healthy for a society to make life so difficult, that people can’t afford housing.
      Despite all the patsy attempts to address the issue.
      First home buyers have fallen by 11600 homes.
      Investors have increased by 82100 homes.

      The government is failing miserably, to create a fair society.
      One can go to the extreme.
      Why is being a landlord, even legal.
      If property investing in housing was banned.
      Prices would fall, to what’s actually affordable.
      100% of homes would be owned by those living in them.

      One can be certain, that investors have an advantage.
      If they can so easily outbid, live in the house owners.
      They must be financially advantaged.
      If the family can pay rent, the investor can afford to finance the house.
      Why can’t the family afford the house, if they can afford rent.

      Simply put the government works for the interests, of landlords.
      It does not support the family, or a fair society.

      An easy fix would be to tax rental income.
      Classing it as personal income.
      So like the family, they must pay tax.
      The family pays the mortgage on tax paid income.
      The mortgage interest does not reduce taxable income.
      Home maintenance, is not tax deductible.
      The landlord gets huge tax advantages, over home owners.
      Then with a little manipulation of the large portfolio.
      Capital gains tax can be avoided as well.

      Who is the government working for.
      It is clearly not the working class.
      Politicians / landlords have done well.

      Comment by DJ Ward — Sun 28th November 2021 @ 9:34 am

    6. “The Working Class”

      This is one of the reasons I really despise Helen Clark.

      We’ve had the opportunity since the ‘crown came to NZ’ to not inherit the British Class System and generally we haven’t.

      Clark built a fictitious reputation that she was fighting the class system which was a myth believed by too many people.

      What she didn’t say was … we are the elites, the global intelligence that should rule the world.’

      Trade your heroes for ghosts.

      Comment by Evan Myers — Sun 28th November 2021 @ 7:43 pm

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