Politics and sob stories for first-home buyers

Politics and sob stories for first-home buyers
Why should first-home buyers be up to their eyeballs in debt? (Photo: Depositphotos)
Jenny Ruth
Why is it that New Zealand as a nation is so sympathetic to first-home buyers and why is it so politically desirable to allow them to get up to their eyeballs in debt?Why do we have so much empathy for these youngsters, but not for their grandparents who have been living for years now with the invidious choice of either watching very low interest rates erode their precious nest eggs or taking on much more investment risk than they're comfortable with?Come to think of it, why is the Reserve Bank using tighter loan-to-valuation ratio restrict...

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Staff reporters 12 Sep 2025