Prefabrication Holmes   February 28th.

In the housing arena,the Government has taken something that is simple and straight forward and made it complex and difficult.All Governments of late have failed to increase the number of state houses available to low income families.The number of state houses have disappeared, they represent 13% of the rental housing market,private landlords  control the other 87%of the market.

The disestablishment of the New Zealand Housing Commission,is one of the many reasons that governments have created the present housing crisis.The Commission produced good information and advice to the government of the day on what was needed for the future on housing ,Rodger Douglas thought other wise,and disestablished the Commission.

The shortage of affordable rental housing has brought back the idea of prefabrication homes,made in factories and erected on site.The Palmerston North Teachers College was once a transit camp with '' prefab housing '' tenants lived there while the government was building State Housing around the city.The image of ''prefabs'' has been stigmatized by the media,they are seen as clones of one another, the same could be said of private housing in more up market neighbourhoods.Yet there are a number of groups  who have produced interesting houses at low cost,but local councils and central government have shown little interest as  they only seem interested in home ownership,despite the fact that home ownership is not going to happen for the majority of New Zealanders.Renters are the future and will be for some time to come,it will take years to sort out of the mess we are in with affordable housing,we need a government with a commitment to public housing.

 

Property Managers

Here in New Zealand,property managers are not licensed and are not answerable to anyone.At present,anyone can start up a property management company,take letting fees and pick up rents without having to prove they know anything about what they are doing.There have been attempts to set professional standards for property managers over the years,but nothing has changed.

It is now time for change,as renters are in the ascendancy in New Zealand.The property management sector needs to set standards and ethics for their unregulated sector.In 2008 the Justice and Electoral select committee recommended "Immediate action should be taken to create an appropriate regulatory regime for property management actives."but the associate minister of justice  at the time ,Nathan Guy,said additional regulation wasn't justified.

It should be noted that property managers have keys to your home,collect rents every week and require tenants to consent to credit checks.This gives them the ability to trawl through a tenants history and other personal information.In fact property managers and private landlords maintain power and control over tenants and many operate a "blacklist" so that some tenants have difficult time seeking a reference.

This is not the case in Australia where property managers have to meet minimum qualification requirements.But in New Zealand property managers want to know everything about their tenants,yet tenants no nothing about the character of their property manager/landlord,It is not a big ask to know ,you are dealing with a reputable person, change is needed now to redress this imbalance.