The pandemic has made the housing crisis worse, pushing our house price-to-income ratio into even more wildly disproportionate territory, one of the highest in the world. Stats NZ figures show home ownership is at its lowest in 70 years, from a high of about 78 percent in the 1980s to about 55 percent today. Home ownership rates has fallen in every region since 1991, and only 35 percent of Māori and 20 percent of Pasifika own their own homes. Once upon a time, you might have expected people aged 55-64 would be mortgage-free; today, only 38 percent of people are, and the percentage of people aged 65+ with no mortgage has dropped from 78 percent in 2007 to 72 percent in 2017. In fact, 12 percent of people aged 65+ are still paying a mortgage, and the same number are renting.
Naomi Arnold, 'Bad then, worse now: How Covid-19 will hurt retired women', RNZ