Mike's Minute: We need to break this stereotype in NZ

Here is a stereotype we have to break, especially given the solution is now available.  There was a young woman in her 20s, in the beauty industry, training as a nurse and will go into the private sector. She has a plan and good on her.  As part of this particular conversation though, she says she can never see herself owning a house.  Of our five kids, one or possibly two, I suspect they feel the same, and yet the National Party's 5% deposit announcement made over the weekend changes all of that.  Of all the policy released so far from any party, this is by far the most consequential.  There is no Government-owned supermarket, they won't be breaking up gentailers, or buying BNZ back. This campaign has been full of fanciful nonsense.  But the 5% is not only real, it's doable. It's so doable it looks likely the Labour Party will copy it and, above all else, it's the most important thing a policy can be – practical.  5% of a $700,000 house is $35,000. For most young people they can see that.  20% of that house is $140,000. That’s not real.  At last, the biggest issue around housing is solved. It used to be solved, and we used to do this routinely, until we ballsed it up in yet another example of taking a problem that never existed and messing it about.  20% was never needed. The only thing preventing 5% deposits was Adrian Orr and the Reserve Bank and an unhealthy fear of carnage.  Even if you end up for a period in a flat market, as we have now with negative equity, it will pass. It always does.  Even if housing in New Zealand never grows at 10% a year ever again, it will grow. And what I know, as sure as night follows day, is we love houses. We dream of owning our own place.  That is the constant in this whole mad debate that too many people have made too complicated.  Banks should never have been dictated to by the central bank because retail banks know what they're doing.  Between a government-insured scheme and KiwiSaver and retail banks, there should never have been a hurdle as large as it was.  There should never have been a generation for whom owning a piece of their country was seemingly beyond them.  The 5% policy sorts it. The trick now is to get that message out to people like the trainee nurse, who still don’t know how close they might be.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.