However my point was not that Auckland is more or less messed up but a comment based on personal experience and a note of personal concern. I do admit being bemused by the rush to defence...here and elsewhere.

Quite. NZ doesn't have to be the only drug and booze addled…

Anyone else got any "I did P and I'm OK" stories?

I tried it a couple of times in the US about ten years ago and thought it was no fun at all. So I never bothered with it after that.

Anyone else got any "I did P and I'm OK" stories?

I know quite a few people with this story. I do also know a few who are not OK.

But maybe it's something you don't talk about on the net under a real name when you live in Indonesia.

Not at all Ben, I simply missed the question. Bali, and Indo in general have substantial issues relating to illicit drug use, in particular shabu-shabu (=speed). I'd advance the thought…

Canada being Canada (i.e. freezing even in summer sometimes) there is even a huge "kid dryer" at the big Lumbermans' Arch Water Park so that soaked children can be blow dried before the chilly walk home along the sea wall.

Do Want!

But just who to vote for instead? That's the issue.

Sure is. Your choices on the left are slim if you rule out Labour and the Greens :-)

And which big city doesn't have people drinking and drugging too much? Not denying what he's seen, but you know, isn't this…

That's an amazing playground indeed... huge and grassy (the grassy part is distinctly un-Sydney like, what's Adelaide like?) Is the fact that I can't see sun-shade because it's seldom required (joke)?

Adelaide playgrounds? Dull. Plenty of them, plenty of grass and shade, but the play equipment is just the usual…

he probably didn't get the loan because he's on a $40k wage with 2 dependants. there's no way you could service a $235k mortgage on that kind of money.

the brother needs a 2nd job.

[...] some ChCh chap who had returned from 6 years teaching in Japan with a wife, child, and $40k for a deposit

[...] I wondering how 'pathetic' his salary was that he couldn't get mortgage finance for a $235k loan. Teachers aren't that badly paid anymore[...]

There's a whole…

You should try being sick on Sickness Benefit.

I feel your pain.

No pun intended obviously. I tried to think of something else but "I strongly sypathise with your plight" sounds silly.

a) required to make repayments on his student loan. Can't remember the exact details but the IRD do "insist" you make certain minimum repayments if living abroad.

b) incurring interest on…

I think the formula for bank lending on homes is about 4x the annual income of the primary applicant +…

feel like you're being interrogated and made to feel grateful to the govt for something you're completetly entitled to?

You should try being sick on Sickness Benefit.

Or is it just pop up as part of your tax filing, except you have to throw in a couple of birth certificates? (honest question, I wouldn't have a clue)

It's largely the latter in my experience. Fill in a form, send in a birth certificate – voila. Though the…

Although to some extent it's a matter of semiotics, people's interpretation would depend, I guess, a lot on implimentation…

Is that a 'pathetic salary'?

That was my point. I wondering how 'pathetic' his salary was that he couldn't get mortgage finance for a $235k loan. Teachers aren't that badly paid anymore ("Avalanche!!!") and the cost of living in ChCh is supposedly lower than Akl.

What kind of society are we…

I had to wonder what pathetic salary he was on that he couldn't manage it.

Banks will let you borrow, what... four times your wage before tax? That would mean he'd have to be earning about... $60,000 a year? (Assuming his wife didn't have a wage-earning job.) Is that a…

There's a fantastic playground in Wanganui, of all places.

Deborah, you've made my day. It's great to see that's still there. We used to go there when I was little and we lived in Taihape.

There's a fantastic playground in Wanganui, of all places.

That's an amazing playground indeed... huge and grassy (the grassy part is distinctly un-Sydney like, what's Adelaide like?) Is the fact that I can't see sun-shade because it's seldom required (joke)?

You could, if, and only if, you have the fiscal toughness

true. but if *have* to spend the money then locking yourself in a huge debt is bound to cause a reasonably high amount of stress...

so, "forcing yourself to build equity" equates to "being depressed because i'm unable to…

You could, if, and only if, you have the fiscal toughness to do so. Many people find that very hard – expenses somehow accumulate…

Is it another case of the media people perversely believing that they themselves are typical ?

No, it's just that bad news sells. So even good news has to be spun into bad. Higher interest rates also have a lot of winners via the higher dollar, but that news always…

Or save $50k/year for five years while renting and skip the bank altogether.

our combined income is a hang of a lot less than $200k. and we rent a not-cheap place in central wellington.

i worked out that with a reasonable degree of prudence we could actually save $120k in…

on $200k pa you could easily pay off a $350k house, and save a huge sum of money in other investments. something beyond the abilities of the actual average couples income of <$90k.

Or save $50k/year for five years while renting and skip the bank altogether.

Is it another case of the media people perversely believing that they themselves are…

the smaller option means a smaller mortgage, less stress, and more discretionary spending (i.e. holidays in vietnam). the banks are the enemy, but everyone seems to think they're your best friend...

Exactly what we did and you"re absolutely right, makes for a quality lifestyle, but this hasn't made the bank…

If you can't pay a $500k mortgage out of $200k pa, you are managing your money very poorly, it seems to me.

you're also looking at a typically kiwi crisis of expectations.

why so many people default to "the biggest house we can afford" instead of the "smallest place we…

The headlines are what got to me in the end:

"Poisoned Berries blah blah" when what…

Try again....

My brief experience with Australia, which only really consisted of Perth, indicated they they really knew how to playground over there.

There's a fantastic playground in Wanganui, of all places.

My brief experience with Australia, which only really consisted of Perth, indicated they they really knew how to playground over there.

There's a fantastic playground in Wanganui, of all places.

Politics is one way of making dreams realistic. markets are not laws of nature, they are human institutions, and so can be changed. And that is what people are demanding now with housing.

Crazy talk! Thanks I/S.

This may not be a realistic dream anymore. There are other ways to live.

Politics is one way of making dreams realistic. markets are not laws of nature, they are human institutions, and so can be changed. And that is what people are demanding now with housing.

Check it out: the amazing NYT rent vs buy calculator.

On mentioning this to my darling fiancé she exclaimed "Who would want to rent a calculator?"

And that's why I love her.

Has anyone noticed the tucked away little par in the Herald about Labour going up in the polls and National down? It would be on the front page if it was the other way round....

Not so sure about that — without wanting to waste a lot of time I…

The basic tenet remains. If you can't afford it, don't buy it.

If you can't afford and buy it anyway (regardless of motivation for doing so), then you really don't have anyone to blame but yourself if you suddenly find yourself in trouble.

Well, yes and no. "Somewhere to live"…

]]> Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:20:51 +1300 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-make-you-crazy-like-datura/?p=41939#post41939 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-make-you-crazy-like-datura/?p=41939#post41939

gluttonous white sandy beach exclusivity

That is some pretty pretty word use there Steven.

I think you are touching on something with this:

But it's become allot more difficult, since people started putting so much extra emphasis on 'owning' the slice of paradise. There are actually some that share land…

It's the obsession with being able to see the sea from the house that baffles me. The sea is an inhospitable place.

It's also very beautiful to look at. Tell me if it was a free choice between a property at the top of a hill commanding a 180 sweep…

I know many 30-something couples with combined incomes of $200k who still face the prospect of 30 mortgages and having to borrow upwards of $500k.

If you can't pay a $500k mortgage out of $200k pa, you are managing your money very poorly, it seems to me. At 9.5% over…

That's one definition, but there is another, crude but objective one, which is the ratio of median income to median house price. It is at a historical extreme in NZ right now, as we all know.

A…

This may not be a realistic dream anymore. There are other ways to live.

If this is true, will people still be able to save/build sufficient assets to support them in a meaningful retirement? The mortgage free house has been a key part of generations' retirement plans; if your retirement…

a nice house on a quarter-acre section in a part of town they wanted to live

This may not be a realistic dream anymore. There are other ways to live.

I hear that too, it is fine for me to be blase about house prices because I don't have a family, but still.....

I have noticed that on the Herald myviews site there was a lot of talk about capital gains tax, and I wonder whether that's where their interest is coming from

Well, there are two components when people talk about the badness of the housing market.

One is the developers. They…

Has anyone noticed the tucked away little par in the Herald about Labour going up in the polls and National down? It would be on the front page if it was the other way round....

Not so sure about that — without wanting to waste a lot of time I…

But there's more than just business considerations in buying your own house.

General social effects, for starters, which Habitat for Humanity are big on citing, for example.

Home ownership culture, on the surface of it, seems to be a New World Colony thing.

Well, yes. In Europe there have been…

The basic tenet remains. If you can't afford it, don't buy it.

If you can't afford and buy it anyway (regardless of motivation for doing so), then you really don't have anyone to blame but yourself if you suddenly find yourself in trouble.

Well, yes and no. "Somewhere to live"…

Has anyone noticed the tucked away little par in the Herald about Labour going up in the polls and National down?

I struggled to find it in the online version. Do you mean the Roy Morgan poll referred to in the John Armstrong opinion piece?

Could you not also argue that NZ, lacking a compulsory superannuation regime, is lagging in the building of the necessary capital depth to pay for baby boomer retirement?

Add this to a tax/regulatory environment heavily biased in favour of property investment as the default…

What sort of playground were you after?

There are many mediocre but usable ones dotted around all sides of our city. and lots of little hidden gems....check out the bottom of west end park in freemans bay, or the one hidden behind trees opposite the rose gardens in parnell, also…

I spent three or four weeks in Auckland ........... My only gripe is the serious lack of good playgrounds.

What sort of playground were you after?

There are many mediocre but usable ones dotted around all sides of our city. and lots of little hidden gems....check out the bottom of…

Strictly as a financial proposition, renting is going to make a lot of sense for a lot of people. But there's more than just business considerations in buying your own house.

I'm quite happy paying 'some landlord's rent' at this stage; no rates, no interest and they even mow my lawn!

Rogan:

Really interesting comment — and I wonder if there's any empirical data out there to back up my instinct that the younger you are, the more comfortable you are…

This is my favourite typo of the week so far. I have a vision of all of us in white frocks and gloves, entering the season/marriage market...

Happy to oblige, Danielle. Buying a house seems to involve getting into a long and unhappy marriage of inconvenience with the financial institution…

as well as all the climb-the-ladder reality TV programmes and the bloody Living Channel (which I refer to as 'Real Estate Porn')

Geoff, wouldn't those shows be pushing up the house prices in France/Italy/Name your mediterranean country here. How do those poms afford all those run down chateaus anyway.

The thought of paying 9%+ on…

... and the swarming crowd of hideous real estate agents, who have a vested interest in pushing up house prices...

I used to believe that until I had one working for me. Then it became clear to me their modus operandi is to work hardest on lowering the seller's expectations,…

I fear this is only too true though:
a lot of people who were pressured into buying precisely because they heard and read about the rapid escalation and thought "it's now or never"

I heard…

If you can't afford and buy it anyway (regardless of motivation for doing so), then you really don't have anyone to blame but yourself if you suddenly find yourself in trouble.

Blaming everyone else for a bad decision…

Of course it helps not to leave a real name and phone number on an open home register unless you're genuinely interested in the place.

Perhaps there's a lot of people who could afford the mortgage at 7% but not at 10%?

Perhaps there's a lot of people who could afford the mortgage when both partners worked, but now one isn't?

Perhaps there were a lot…

But it's not the bank's fault, it's government. They set the rules around debt creation, and our government choose to use a set of rules that can't control debt powered inflation of capital value.

This might sound quaint, but the bursting housing bubble is neither the fault of banks, or…

Has there been any serious scholarly investigations into what has driven the housing price rise in NZ this last few years?

The Reserve Bank's done some work: it should be on their web site. Arthur Grimes did some work for Motu last year as well.

There isn't a single reason,…

As an alternative you could say somethimg like "no , the gaping' weeping,scabby holes in your face are not much of an incentive. "

I'm far too polite for that. My real solution is just to stop associating with them.

. My excuse for opting out is that I never mix uppers and downers. It's actually bloody annoying that I even need an excuse, but P-heads looove company.

As an alternative you could say somethimg like "no , the gaping' weeping,scabby holes in your face are not much of an…

I think a speculative bubble certainly has happened, but I also think the speculators are responsible and they are being punished. People who bought a house with the intention of living in it will not be affected.

a debut culture

This is my favourite typo of the week so far. I have a vision of all of us in white frocks and gloves, entering the season/marriage market...

Easier loans (amongst other thing) drive house prices up. Higher house prices result in more borrowing, fairly logical given the easier loans.

More borrowing, even say an extra $20k on a 15 year mortgage, at current rates adds about $60k to total repayments (the extra being…

Really? I would have said that lax enforcement of our vague tax laws has created the conditions that blew more air into a speculative bubble.

But judging by today's news, that bubble's already deflating.

Caveat emptor and all that...

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" is worth keeping in mind to. But I guess teenagers aren't the only folks who have a charming, but utterly misguided, delusion that bad shit only happens to other people. How do you get through that…

The editorial rages that such absence "makes it plain that the Government does not possess the courage to tackle the tax distortions which, more than anything, have created the affordability problem. Instead, it has gone for easier options."

Sigh. By all means tax 2nd home owners if it makes folks…

... But like a lot of ex-pat comments it seems to betray a rose-tinted view of where they are, and a sort of cultural cringe towards their homeland that leads them to complain about it isn't, rather than loving what it is.

That's an interesting observation. I certainly had a…

Nonsense. That only applies if borrowing is unavailable to you, but available to everyone else.

No, it applies if you are trying to buy something really expensive, and can't afford it any other way.

I agree that lending is inflationary, and easy lending is particularly inflationary. It can't be any…

Simon, I'm also my worst critic. I didn't make it clear that I got that you were saying "Auckland and NZ is actually mostly cool, the residents just don't seem to appreciate it".

And I didn't make that clear either but anyone who knows me knows how I feel about…

I find it hard to see banks as villains. I would not have a property if it was not for them.

Nonsense. That only applies if borrowing is unavailable to you, but available to everyone else. Without banks housing price inflation would not have been artificially stoked by those who…

Without going into detail, Damian told me a fall-from-grace P story last night that just staggered me.

Yeah, I heard a pretty bad shocker a few weeks ago. My excuse for opting out is that I never mix uppers and downers. It's actually bloody annoying that I even need an…

Oh god, can't resist it

I could. But it was tempting.

You want a recipe for raw prawns?

Not really raw but cooked in the lemon juice they've been sitting in. And smothered in chopped chilli and....well...

But we've managed to approximate, so all is well

waking to this was a wee bit of a shock.

Sorry, might have warned you ... I just found the posts interesting, and I didn't want to lead with a rant about the Herald.

Without going into detail, Damian told me a fall-from-grace P story last night that just staggered…

Can't they just get on with it and die?

Well, it would save us from Winston Peters.

god I miss the raw prawns

You want a recipe for raw prawns?

Eating in Auckland is uneven, but – for example – the Kingsland eating strip is very good (I love Bouchon, I love Canton, I adore Mekong Nuea...) and I think the Albert Street food court is smashing. I suppose you do have to know where to go.

see, there you…

3410, I find it hard to see banks as villains.

Certainly not when their sub-prime chickens are coming home to roost like a gonzo re-make of The Birds. Politically speaking, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for either Bill English or Michael Cullen to look voters in the eye and…

I can – it's those rat bastard mini-developers who take a slightly shabby house on a reasonable section (just right for first home buyers with families), then rip it down, concrete over the lot & build 3 cheap&nasty 'over-60s' units.

Only if the road builders were prepared to skimp on the mitigation (and find some way of avoiding Pak n Save) would this option be significantly cheaper. And skimping on the mitigation is not what I want..

Which is why the surface option left the picture some time ago. Depicting…

In fact, I can't see any villians in housing affordability. OK, it's a bugger that I grew up in St Mary's Bay, but will probably never be able…

I think Metro…

Housing Affordability: The biggest villain – and the one…

I do know though that when one's been away for a good length of time, and made "home" somewhere else, the differences upon return can be quite stark, and it's possible to go through a strange, oscillating "I love it!" / "I hate it!" kind of phase.

And I wonder…

Transit did at one stage consider an above-ground (well, more correctly, surface) option. The trouble with that is that as well as taking probably more houses than cut & cover, it also divides the community into two and displaces a lot of…

I do know though that when one's been away for a good length of time, and made "home" somewhere else, the differences upon return can be quite stark, and it's possible to go through a…

Certainly if reads like elements of a self fulfilling prophecy if or rationalisation after the fact perhaps.

If…