Author Archives: Elinor Chisholm

A couple of weeks ago, the worrying issue of high rents in Christchurch came to renewed attention when Trademe reported that rents had risen 14% in Christchurch over the past year. Minister of Housing Nick Smith disputed the figures, and said that according to data from the Tenancy Bond Service and the Consumer Price Index,…More

There’s a lot of bad press about renters. At one end of the extreme there’s Renters, a show about “the dirtiest, dimmest and most despicable renters imaginable” which warns you against even living next door to any one who rents. There’s the bank by my house, encouraging me to get a mortgage by showing a photo…More

From next week, community housing providers have the option of purchasing Hamilton City Council pensioner housing. What does this mean for the future of social housing in Hamilton? Social housing (housing provided at below market rents) in New Zealand is provided by the government (through Housing New Zealand), councils, and a number of community housing…More

“There used to be a sort of unwritten law that a man should give a day’s pay for a week’s rent, but that cannot be done now.” – Alfred Washer, House and Land Agent, 1912 One hundred years on, there are a few familiar aspects of Alfred Washer’s thoughts on  housing affordability, which he related to…More

The New Zealand Government was concerned about the cost of living/housing, and directed Commissions to investigate the issue. One of the conclusions of both Commissions, a century apart, are remarkably similar. Industry does not build housing for “working-men” (1912 language) or the “lower quartiles” (2012 language). One real estate agent told the Royal Commission on the…More

Life was hard for renters in Buenos Aires in the early twentieth century. Tenants lived in poorly ventilated, crowded, noisy rooms, with few facilities and high rents. The poor conditions prompted 120,000 renters in 740 tenements to go on rent strike in 1907. There’s a nice detail in Baer and Wood’s article about the rent…More

The government’s policy on the transfer or sale of state housing to community housing organisations is getting a lot of attention lately (I wrote about the end-of-this-era here back in May). I voiced some of my own concern in a submission to select committee [pdf] when the legislation that set up this system was passed- the…More

There’s a lot in the news about housing this week. But the story that I read this week that I keep thinking about is the one on a coroner’s report. The tragic event of a baby’s death provides a shocking insight into the conditions a family can live in in New Zealand. At the time…More

The fantasy where the landlord leaves you the house is not so different from any inheritance or lottery-winning fantasy, except it is that much more tangible. You can see it all around you. You sit around after dinner and think about what could be: “If the landlord left us the house, we would put in…More