January 24th
The Manawatu Tenants Union,welcomes students back to Palmerston North and trusts you enjoy the city and its residents.
This is the time the rental housing market is set to kick off.The costs of finding a flat/house can be considerable,around $2,300 +just to move into an average three bed roomed house.Rental accommodation is the only option for most New Zealand families.Waiting lists continue to grow for affordable state housing and council housing.The cost to the taxpayer is soaring,through the accommodation supplement,paid to landlords.Rents have increased by 5.6% in the Manawatu in the last year,while incomes have not risen to meet the increased rents being demanded by landlords.
Now is a good time to look at how some of the costs being placed on tenants can be reduced.Landlords are running a business and should pay all the costs of running a business.Letting fees [ 1 weeks rent +GST ] should be banned ,as they are in the UK. This a cost that landlords should meet, not tenants,this would see more money being spent in the community.As house prices rise year by year,landlords have good reason to be grateful to their tenants as their rents ultimately contribute to line the pockets of landlords.
Lets hope our government takes a page out of the book the Conservative government in the UK and assist renters and not just home owners.This change will happen,as there are more renters than home owners and the they are voters.
January 18th.2017
On housing issues the government has boosted demand but not supply,it is very hard to detect what the government thinks a good housing policy looks like.The National Party is seen as the party of home ownership,but it has failed to revive home ownership for New Zealanders.At the same time waiting lists for state housing and council housing continue to get longer,while the cost of the accommodation supplement is soaring along with private market rents.It should be noted that rents have risen by 5.6% in the last year while wages have not risen to meet the increased rents being demanded by landlords.
The National government under Jim Bolger was ideologically opposed to state/council housing and sold 13,500 state houses to private landlords at fire sale prices.It was a disaster,we are now reaping the price of that bad policy with the present housing crisis and the inequality it has produced.The Key/English administrations have just carried on with the 1990's policy which is seen as a failure.It is seen as the legacy of the Bolger/Key governments,one that increased homelessness and inequality in a country that once prided itself on being an egalitarian society
It is an election year,so make sure you vote,so as your children and grandchildren have a better start in life than what you had,we owe them that.
