The Housing Haves and Have-Nots

the house price boom and inequality of wealth in New Zealand

Abstract

The rise in house prices since the turn of the millennium seems likely to have increased the inequality of wealth in New Zealand. On average, house-owners were wealthier than others before the boom, and during the boom real house prices more than doubled. Yet the available data shows little evidence of an increase in inequality in wealth or even of a growing proportional disparity between the net wealth of property owners and others. Difficulties in accurately measuring these changes in wealth are reviewed.