Wellington, Feb 20 Nearly 20 per cent of New Zealand households spent 40 per cent or more of their income on housing in the year ended June 2024, up from 18.2 per cent of households the previous year, according to figures released by the statistics department Stats NZ on Thursday.
Households spent an average of 22.2 NZ dollars per 100 NZ dollars of income on housing in this period, up from 20.8 NZ dollars in 2019, Stats NZ said.
One-third of low-income households in New Zealand spent more than 40 percent of their income on housing in the year ended June 2024, the department said, adding people spent a higher proportion of their money on housing than they had in the past, although incomes increased.
"This creates further pressure on a household's budget, along with things like groceries and petrol getting more expensive over the same time period," Stats NZ household financial statistics spokesperson Chris Pooch said.
The average annual household equivalized disposable income (before housing costs) increased by 5.5 percent, whereas average weekly rent payments increased by 9 percent and weekly mortgage payments increased by 8.7 percent between the years ended June 2023 and June 2024, statistics show.
About 38.2 per cent of households felt that their income was "not enough" or "only just enough" to meet their everyday needs, with the figure increasing over the last two years, Xinhua news agency reported.
About 14.8 per cent of households that owned or partly owned their home spent more than 40 per cent of their disposable income on housing costs in the year ended June 2024, feeling increasing pressure from mortgage payments, it said.
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