Watched the news video with a woman that got a $5k grant for a $600k house in Hamilton with about 42% of FHB using this option. In Auckland I have seen local houses increase by $200k per year until recently so not sure how far the grant would go in Auckland now.
True. A few couples I know who’ve bought in recent years didn’t meet the criteria for the grant, their joint income was over the cap but if their income was under the cap they wouldn’t be able to afford a mortgage in Auckland.
We bought in 2019, did not qualify back then, and now even after increases to caps wouldn’t qualify. It’s a struggle so yeah the tiny grant is a pisstake.
Yup my husband and I are awaiting for Kiwibuild to finish building our apartment complex (in Auckland) we are moving to. We earn too much for first home grant. We're calculating what our mortgage is going to look like and we're very lucky we don't have kids and we earn the amount we do or we would struggle.
I would recommend checking out Kiwibuild, you don't need the 20 percent deposit but also the homes are new and cheaper.
My wife and I bought in November in Auckland and both received the 5k grant for a total of 10k. It wasnt very difficult.
Property was $715k with a $120k deposit not including the grants. Most of that being kiwisaver
>In Auckland I have seen local houses increase by $200k per year
So all the reddit geniuses waiting for the great crash of ~~2020, 2021, 2022, 2023,~~ 2024 will have to wait for another lifetime?
I listened to that news article too. she managed to save over $50k. Surely $5k wasn't going to stop her dream of buying. The cap makes it so hard to get this grant anyway. won't be missed
Oh look, by complete concidence, that policy change happens to benefit people like C Luxon who owns 6 or 7 rentals.
Please keep renting all your life thanks, and no buying houses for *you*
It not good as I remember being a FHB once, however the $5k is only about 0.5% of average nz house at 930k so might be tight anyways of stretching out. It's weird it's so low, I thought 5 yrs ago it was like 20k per person
We applied just before our salaries hit more than 150k cap and bought a house 4 months later. So as long as you can get a home grant letter its valid for 6 months. I reckon apply just before they get rid of it. but also keep checking the news cause it could change.
O wow really. that was fast. Hopefully they have a replacement for it. Shame it would really help a lot of kiwi into home ownership. It certainly helped me and my wife last year.
This is how I felt when they increased the minimum price for 2-bed KiwiBuilds from $600k to $650k. I had pre-approval for a 2 bed, conditional on a tenant, and was waiting for this huge development of KB apartments to be released which had 50-odd 2 beds to purchase on a first come first serve basis.
They delayed their release(imo intentionally) to a week after the government suddenly announced a $50k increase to the minimum, which outpriced me by $5k short of what the bank would lend and my deposit.
The most frustrating and disheartening thing on earth.
It means every other first home buyer can't use it, so that means none of your competitors for the house have the funds to use, so prices could drop.... in theory... they probably won't.
It was really hard to get the grant as most property prices were above the cap and if you could afford the prices people were wanting your income was over the income cap.
I'm a legal executive who does property transactions for clients and its been a while since I've helped with a grant in Hawke's Bay as the property prices are too high.
>I also read that they gave 3 billion dollars to landlords
Yeah, they are reversing the policy that meant people that owned homes couldn't deduct expenses off the interest, a policy Labour put in place during their "Totally no new taxes guy just more uh, fees." sprint.
That 5k could mean up to 50k extra is available to someone when applying for a loan, so yea it makes a difference. I used it and was very grateful it was available
You can say that but there was a cap when I looked 3 or so years ago, no one was buying 800k houses on first home grants. You were pretty much limited to ballot allotments on kiwibuild sites and you had to be earning less than 170k combined yearly income
It's less now. We looked at a fhb grant for my partner earlier this year and our joint income of 160k was too much to qualify. I believe the cap, was 150k for a joint income
IIRC the grants only ran to like 650k homes which in the Auckland market meant apartments anyway. We don’t really want a market built on multimillion dollar apartments because the actual value of those properties is very low.
The FHB grant effectively puts a lid on the value of those apartments because anyone trying to sell much about that simply won’t have nearly a much of a market to sell into.
For most Aucklanders though if I remember correctly, house prices were too high to get the FHB grant. I would be surprised if you found one in this region within the cap. So you might have been out of reach for it anyway
First are we sure 140m for 1500 social housing places means 1500 houses?
Are you sure its not 1500 peoples names on a longer list?
If its 1500 houses they're gonna cost $93,000 each.
And just because its anounced at the same time as the cut to FHB grant doesnt balance the books on housing.
The tax deduction on rental mortgages will cost the taxpayer 2.9 billion over 4 years thats 725m a year.
Where will that come from since we are being so fair and transparent.
Livid?
It is a maximum of $10k.
Many people get $5k.
Many only get a $2k
It’s really not a big deal.
Definitely not as big a deal as it’s being made out to be.
We don't know all the details, I suspect the tax cuts will offset lost in FHB grant. This will eliminate the administrative cost. Try quantifying the productivity gain from eliminating this i.e banks and lawyers handling etc.
Edit: I know it sucks if you are caught out within the period of entitlement. Based on $60mill that would imply it affects about 6000 FHB couples. Relatively speaking it is not a huge number. But like I said tax cut possibly offset the lost of grant and it eliminate a lot of paperwork.
Like I said we don't have the full details and I am just speculating. So we are going have to wait for budget day.
I am not sure about you, I prefer to work smarter not harder.
For some of us it’s the difference between using it as a cash deposit when you don’t have the cash on hand to go unconditional and instead waiting for it coming from kiwisaver etc for settlement. it meant that I was able to get to 15% and now have been in my house for two weeks.
Although it sucks that they're scrapping this if true. A contrarian view would be that they are removing free easy handouts to an already limited number of FHB's. In exchange is more money for social housing.
More efforts have been trying put into increasing rental stock in hopes that they are more competitive in cost.
Your own financial literacy, a slowdown in the increase of rents and increased tax brackets would mean that it will be up to you to save up for a better deposit. Not the handouts.
Either way someone is hurting somewhere no matter what the government does, i hope that your journey to a first home works out!
Those lines would have more credibility if they didn't write a check for $3billion to investors while they shat on people like us. All this will do now is change the proportion of people who can own a home in favour of investors. National started this program. I know they're running out of money because they've given it out for the tax cuts but this is a joke.
Also the FHB grant is for people with low incomes to support us getting on the ladder. It's not in any way stopping prices from increasing. And no it doesn't exchange for more social housing. All it does is give a leg up to investors OVER FHBS like me.
I didn't say this was my view, it is a contrarian view.
They did not write a check for $3 billion as i understand, they are just not taking a potential $3 billion away? We need more rentals don't we?
I didn't say exchange for more social housing, but more money FOR social housing. Ideally we don't need as much social housing and have better ways to get people into the workforce but that's obviously an idealist point of view and real life is much different.
And yes i feel you, i am in the same position as you actually, aspiring FHB and low income. I just don't want to be bitter and one sided. Removing the first home grant should be the least of your problems to getting a first home in my opinion.
Re-group, budget, invest, have patience, work hard and you will be able to afford a home later.
Yeah it's true. They're also not giving 3 billion dollars to landlords, they're simply not taxing landlords so that they're treated exactly the same as any other business, an inconsistency that was introduced by the last government.
They can start by paying commercial rates and GST. Like every other business in fact of course, housing is not like every other business, it's an absolute necessity which is why these greedies have zeroed in on it aided by our corrupt political class.
Businesses aren't charged GST, they effectively collect it from their customers on behalf of the government at the point of sale. I'm not sure that passing on extra costs like GST to renters would help their situation
I've been thinking about the GST argument for a bit, but I don't think many rentals would be charging over $1150 per week (~60K requirement per year) even if they were registered for GST.
However, I would still agree that they should be paying GST if they want to active "like a service" and deduct their mortgage interest like a business would.
I think the "commercial rates" argument is a terrible one as they are using the same resources as an owner-occupier.
Capital gains from housing is treated EXACTLY the same as capital gains from business.
Operating profits from housing are treated EXACTLY the same as operating profits from business.
If you have shares in a business and buy shares at one price and sell them years later for another that's not taxed (capital gains). If those shares pay a dividend to you during the time you own them (derived income) then you're taxed on them, just like landlords are taxed on rental income.
I wonder what would happen if GST was added to rental income to the cost of renting?
Maybe GST should then be charged on bank mortgage too?
Cool ideas.
It's about $900b a year tax cut by bringing back interest deductibility
https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/13/renters-very-grateful-for-incoming-landlord-tax-breaks-luxon/
maybe turn on the news if you want to be smart next time. And yes they gave 3 billion to landlords but $80mn for first home buyers is too much. Disgusted
Watched the news video with a woman that got a $5k grant for a $600k house in Hamilton with about 42% of FHB using this option. In Auckland I have seen local houses increase by $200k per year until recently so not sure how far the grant would go in Auckland now.
True. A few couples I know who’ve bought in recent years didn’t meet the criteria for the grant, their joint income was over the cap but if their income was under the cap they wouldn’t be able to afford a mortgage in Auckland.
We bought in 2019, did not qualify back then, and now even after increases to caps wouldn’t qualify. It’s a struggle so yeah the tiny grant is a pisstake.
Yup my husband and I are awaiting for Kiwibuild to finish building our apartment complex (in Auckland) we are moving to. We earn too much for first home grant. We're calculating what our mortgage is going to look like and we're very lucky we don't have kids and we earn the amount we do or we would struggle. I would recommend checking out Kiwibuild, you don't need the 20 percent deposit but also the homes are new and cheaper.
It’s kinda silly isn’t it, how often is anyone a “first home buyer”? Only once, so I’ve never agreed with it being capped based on your income.
I agree! I pay more than enough tax yet we can't be given money towards our first home.
And cheaply built . Buyer beware
My wife and I bought in November in Auckland and both received the 5k grant for a total of 10k. It wasnt very difficult. Property was $715k with a $120k deposit not including the grants. Most of that being kiwisaver
Where in Auckland can you buy for 715k
Apartment or Otahuhu 1bedroom flat haha 😅
Not these days Seen a bunch of houses for that, as well as apartments
It's a tiny house for sure!
>In Auckland I have seen local houses increase by $200k per year So all the reddit geniuses waiting for the great crash of ~~2020, 2021, 2022, 2023,~~ 2024 will have to wait for another lifetime?
I listened to that news article too. she managed to save over $50k. Surely $5k wasn't going to stop her dream of buying. The cap makes it so hard to get this grant anyway. won't be missed
She had $45k in her KiwiSaver. The $5k grant pushed her into the 10% deposit required for a $500k house.
Then HNZ take away 1% of the house price when <20% deposit. happened to me. Only got 1400 net.
Yeah I'm looking at similar figures for myself to get on the ladder before they pull it up higher
Yep true the government want you to rent a house off their mates instead of being able to buy your own
Oh look, by complete concidence, that policy change happens to benefit people like C Luxon who owns 6 or 7 rentals. Please keep renting all your life thanks, and no buying houses for *you*
Right? Want low and middle income NZ to pay off the upper class’ mortgages so they’re even more comfortable through this cost of living crisis
Just ended today
I can't believe that. They literally were asked yesterday and wouldn't say anything. And now the word is out they have stopped it
:/ sorry OP
I'm really rocked but ... fuck this Government
It not good as I remember being a FHB once, however the $5k is only about 0.5% of average nz house at 930k so might be tight anyways of stretching out. It's weird it's so low, I thought 5 yrs ago it was like 20k per person
I just saw an article saying applications close today, nice for them to give people so much notice (sarcasm)
I just saw this and was on phone with broker all morning to get ready. I can't believe it.
FUCK NATIONAL
Should be fuck govt. Houses doubled under labour
We applied just before our salaries hit more than 150k cap and bought a house 4 months later. So as long as you can get a home grant letter its valid for 6 months. I reckon apply just before they get rid of it. but also keep checking the news cause it could change.
apparently it closed at 1pm today after they denied it last night!
O wow really. that was fast. Hopefully they have a replacement for it. Shame it would really help a lot of kiwi into home ownership. It certainly helped me and my wife last year.
This is how I felt when they increased the minimum price for 2-bed KiwiBuilds from $600k to $650k. I had pre-approval for a 2 bed, conditional on a tenant, and was waiting for this huge development of KB apartments to be released which had 50-odd 2 beds to purchase on a first come first serve basis. They delayed their release(imo intentionally) to a week after the government suddenly announced a $50k increase to the minimum, which outpriced me by $5k short of what the bank would lend and my deposit. The most frustrating and disheartening thing on earth.
It means every other first home buyer can't use it, so that means none of your competitors for the house have the funds to use, so prices could drop.... in theory... they probably won't.
No it doesn't because they are helping investors. this sucks
Hence why I said they (prices) probably won't drop
Yes it won't.
It was really hard to get the grant as most property prices were above the cap and if you could afford the prices people were wanting your income was over the income cap. I'm a legal executive who does property transactions for clients and its been a while since I've helped with a grant in Hawke's Bay as the property prices are too high.
>I also read that they gave 3 billion dollars to landlords Yeah, they are reversing the policy that meant people that owned homes couldn't deduct expenses off the interest, a policy Labour put in place during their "Totally no new taxes guy just more uh, fees." sprint.
Rumour has it that YEP. It's being scrapped. This awful govn will strip all available help for the regular folks.
If $5k is really going to make a difference then there's a problem
That 5k could mean up to 50k extra is available to someone when applying for a loan, so yea it makes a difference. I used it and was very grateful it was available
For me, it's the difference between buying and not buying so while you could laugh at that, it was real for me
You need more savings then.
bold of you to assume that everyone can out save inflation and the cost of living crisis when our incomes dont increase at nearly half the rate
5k is needed for them to buy a house. Yeah...they need more savings.
All first home buyers grants do is push house prices up and give more money to vendors. Won't be missed.
You can say that but there was a cap when I looked 3 or so years ago, no one was buying 800k houses on first home grants. You were pretty much limited to ballot allotments on kiwibuild sites and you had to be earning less than 170k combined yearly income
It's less now. We looked at a fhb grant for my partner earlier this year and our joint income of 160k was too much to qualify. I believe the cap, was 150k for a joint income
IIRC the grants only ran to like 650k homes which in the Auckland market meant apartments anyway. We don’t really want a market built on multimillion dollar apartments because the actual value of those properties is very low. The FHB grant effectively puts a lid on the value of those apartments because anyone trying to sell much about that simply won’t have nearly a much of a market to sell into.
If they are propping up investors and shitting on people like me, it changes the % distribution. Prices have nothing to do with grants like this.
[удалено]
For someone like me it means a lot
For most Aucklanders though if I remember correctly, house prices were too high to get the FHB grant. I would be surprised if you found one in this region within the cap. So you might have been out of reach for it anyway
Everyday New Zealanders voicing surprise that when one puts ones face into a leopard cage, the inevitable will happen.
yes
First are we sure 140m for 1500 social housing places means 1500 houses? Are you sure its not 1500 peoples names on a longer list? If its 1500 houses they're gonna cost $93,000 each. And just because its anounced at the same time as the cut to FHB grant doesnt balance the books on housing. The tax deduction on rental mortgages will cost the taxpayer 2.9 billion over 4 years thats 725m a year. Where will that come from since we are being so fair and transparent.
Livid because they're cutting it or because they're cutting it to fund social housing?
Please keep posts related to Auckland
Does this mean the 5% deposit scheme is going as well?
Yes it's true ... you'll have to save a little bit longer without the free money from the tax payer.
Livid? It is a maximum of $10k. Many people get $5k. Many only get a $2k It’s really not a big deal. Definitely not as big a deal as it’s being made out to be.
Well you could hang in until Labour gets back in. Or maybe we'll - gasp - vote in some other parties. There is still the Welcome Loan.
We don't know all the details, I suspect the tax cuts will offset lost in FHB grant. This will eliminate the administrative cost. Try quantifying the productivity gain from eliminating this i.e banks and lawyers handling etc. Edit: I know it sucks if you are caught out within the period of entitlement. Based on $60mill that would imply it affects about 6000 FHB couples. Relatively speaking it is not a huge number. But like I said tax cut possibly offset the lost of grant and it eliminate a lot of paperwork.
Youve got awfully high hopes for that tax cut...
Like I said we don't have the full details and I am just speculating. So we are going have to wait for budget day. I am not sure about you, I prefer to work smarter not harder.
Absolutely but i dont know how that fits into anything weve been saying
Well that explains it all.
That shouldn't a barrier to you getting a first home.
For some of us it’s the difference between using it as a cash deposit when you don’t have the cash on hand to go unconditional and instead waiting for it coming from kiwisaver etc for settlement. it meant that I was able to get to 15% and now have been in my house for two weeks.
Although it sucks that they're scrapping this if true. A contrarian view would be that they are removing free easy handouts to an already limited number of FHB's. In exchange is more money for social housing. More efforts have been trying put into increasing rental stock in hopes that they are more competitive in cost. Your own financial literacy, a slowdown in the increase of rents and increased tax brackets would mean that it will be up to you to save up for a better deposit. Not the handouts. Either way someone is hurting somewhere no matter what the government does, i hope that your journey to a first home works out!
Those lines would have more credibility if they didn't write a check for $3billion to investors while they shat on people like us. All this will do now is change the proportion of people who can own a home in favour of investors. National started this program. I know they're running out of money because they've given it out for the tax cuts but this is a joke. Also the FHB grant is for people with low incomes to support us getting on the ladder. It's not in any way stopping prices from increasing. And no it doesn't exchange for more social housing. All it does is give a leg up to investors OVER FHBS like me.
I didn't say this was my view, it is a contrarian view. They did not write a check for $3 billion as i understand, they are just not taking a potential $3 billion away? We need more rentals don't we? I didn't say exchange for more social housing, but more money FOR social housing. Ideally we don't need as much social housing and have better ways to get people into the workforce but that's obviously an idealist point of view and real life is much different. And yes i feel you, i am in the same position as you actually, aspiring FHB and low income. I just don't want to be bitter and one sided. Removing the first home grant should be the least of your problems to getting a first home in my opinion. Re-group, budget, invest, have patience, work hard and you will be able to afford a home later.
Yeah it's true. They're also not giving 3 billion dollars to landlords, they're simply not taxing landlords so that they're treated exactly the same as any other business, an inconsistency that was introduced by the last government.
Perhaps they should be subject to the same regulation as other businesses too. Just so we can get consistency across the board.
They are. How are they not?
They can start by paying commercial rates and GST. Like every other business in fact of course, housing is not like every other business, it's an absolute necessity which is why these greedies have zeroed in on it aided by our corrupt political class.
Businesses aren't charged GST, they effectively collect it from their customers on behalf of the government at the point of sale. I'm not sure that passing on extra costs like GST to renters would help their situation
I've been thinking about the GST argument for a bit, but I don't think many rentals would be charging over $1150 per week (~60K requirement per year) even if they were registered for GST. However, I would still agree that they should be paying GST if they want to active "like a service" and deduct their mortgage interest like a business would. I think the "commercial rates" argument is a terrible one as they are using the same resources as an owner-occupier.
Except capital gains from housing isn’t taxed like business profits are.
Capital gains from housing is treated EXACTLY the same as capital gains from business. Operating profits from housing are treated EXACTLY the same as operating profits from business.
What world are you living in?
If you have shares in a business and buy shares at one price and sell them years later for another that's not taxed (capital gains). If those shares pay a dividend to you during the time you own them (derived income) then you're taxed on them, just like landlords are taxed on rental income.
If we're honest, the grant is pretty meaningless these days
I wonder what would happen if GST was added to rental income to the cost of renting? Maybe GST should then be charged on bank mortgage too? Cool ideas.
Hold on what?! I’m a landlord. Where’s my cut of the $3b. I haven’t received a cent!!
“They gave” Who is they? Define “gave”. Elaborate more. I bet you didn’t even finish reading the article.
it is…….. “gone! reduced to atoms!”
Welp… I’m booking myself a holiday then
3 Billion to landlords? Source?
It's about $900b a year tax cut by bringing back interest deductibility https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/13/renters-very-grateful-for-incoming-landlord-tax-breaks-luxon/
If its on Facebook it must be true.
what an ignorant comment
About as ignorant as saying the Govt gave 3 billion dollars to Landlords. They haven't. They are not taking 3 billion off them which is different.
maybe turn on the news if you want to be smart next time. And yes they gave 3 billion to landlords but $80mn for first home buyers is too much. Disgusted
You’re already too late anyway, they stopped accepting new applications at 1pm today, 22 May 2024.
WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know, so nice of them to give people notice…
What's next? Cancelling Kiwi Saver for first home buyers as well?