Andrew Dickens: First home buyers want choice - and townhouses

From today, strict loan affordability regulations are gone from the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, henceforth known as the CCCFA. This ends the bizarre inquisitions into your personal life the banks indulged in before denying you a loan. This is good news for first home buyers, obviously, but the people most affected were those trying to get smaller loans. The grilling you got to get that $5,000 you needed to fix a leak hopefully is over. The loan to value ratio rules have also eased, so again, good news for the first home buyers and investors. So how green are these green shoots in the housing market? Well, one report says that - 'home ownership for typical first home buyers has gone from being solidly in unaffordable territory at the start of the year to just marginally unaffordable in June'. Happy days- but still tough. Meanwhile, it turns out that first home buyers are increasingly buying townhouses. Townhouses made up just 6 percent of all new dwelling consents in 2012, now they account for 45 percent. And they are the obvious solution. Most of England is made up of terraced houses and townhouses, and so are most inner suburbs in Australia. They're grander than apartments. You're not sharing corridors and lifts with strangers. They're just like houses - only smaller. But in New Zealand, many don't like the idea. They've persisted with the dream that their immigrant parents had back in the 50s and 60s with stand alone houses and gardens and space and a dog.  But as our cities get larger we end up living in suburbs far far away from the centre, stuck in cars, growing congestion and not living the Kiwi dream. This new generation just wants enough rooms for a family and a tolerable commute. Many of us lucky enough or old enough to have the stand-alones have been standing in the way of intensification in our suburbs. But that has been standing in the way of a generation who want the choice. You may not choose to live in a townhouse, but you aren’t 24 with a baby and a limited budget. I understand that an earlier paradise is being corrupted. But I also understand it was always inevitable. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.