Price of new house rises 22 p.c. in year

Press, 11 October 1982, Page 16

Price of new house rises 22 p.c. in year

Parliamentary reporter Prices for new houses had increased 22.9 per cent in the year to June, 1982. the Minister of Statistics, Mr Falloon. has told Parliament.

Replying to a question by Ms Helen Clark (Lab., Mount Albert), Mr Falloon said the increase in each of the three preceding years was 15.9 per cent in 1982. 10.7 per cent in 1980, and 6.6 per cent in 1979. The Minister of Housing. Mr Friedlander, said that house prices had increased 96 per cent in the last six years, compared with a 190 per cent increase in wages over the same period. Replying to a later question. Mr Friedlander said that in June, 1975, it took 275 weeks worth of the average weekly gross wage to meet the average price ot a nouse. In June, 1982, it took 187 weeks to pay for an average house. This was a 32 per cent reduction.

A family on the average wage with two children, one aged under five, would have needed 385 weeks wages to buy an average-priced house in June 1975. In June, 1982, it took 223 weeks, a 42 per cent reduction. There had also been a reduction in terms of the servicing costs of buying a house, said Mr Friedlander. In 1975 it cost 37 per cent of the average wage to meet the cost of mortgage repayments on an average priced house when 80 per cent of the purchase price had been borrowed. This year, the figure had dropped to 26.8 per cent, he said.