Ryan Bridge: Buying a house is hard, but still worth it

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Buying a house is hard, but still worth it.

There's new CoreLogic data out this morning, it's a housing affordability report looking at median property values versus median income for households.

Let's put all the detail aside for a second and cut to the chase. Basically, the good news for you, houses are worth 7.9% household income – they were worth 10 times.

So that is good news.

Also good news: the time it takes to save for a deposit is now 10 years. It's better than the 13 years that it took in 2021.

So that's the good news.

The bad news from the start of this morning: mortgage payments, 54% of your median household income, that is 10% above the average.

So there's good news and there's bad news.

It's hard but not impossible for most people, and still very much worth it.

Long term values go up, there's the stability of owning your own place and there's great stories, like this Auckland 20-year-old Lewis Pollock who was in the news the other day. He left school early, worked in retail, became a manager.

He works hard for his money and he saves, had no help from his parents and he's bought his first house at 20.

He's a homeowner and he's saying to other young people, you can do it if you put your mind to it.

Now, I know this is not possible for everyone, some circumstances just wouldn't allow you to be able to put the money aside to save.

But for most young people it's hard but not impossible, and well worth the effort.

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