A home is security and stability – the place we build good, productive lives from. But our housing market is broken, with home ownership now out of reach for generations of Kiwis. It's time to make houses homes again, not just investment vehicles.

The reality is that houses in New Zealand are 'severely unaffordable' — on average a home costs 7.3 times the median wage. A house is considered 'affordable' at 3 times the median wage.

When other parties talk about 'housing affordability', they're usually talking about tweaks that might slow house prices a bit (like building more houses faster). But really, they're hoping like heck that wages creep up faster than house prices over time. But even in the best-case scenario, it would take decades for the wage-house price gap to close again — prices have just gone that high, that fast.

So here's the straight-up truth. If we want affordable housing for New Zealanders, prices have to drop AND we have to build alot of homes, alot faster. Shout out to National MP Chris Bishop — one of the few politicians with the courage to call it like it is.

We understand that this will be a hard policy position to accept for those Kiwis who own homes — particularly those who bought between 2020 and 2023, when prices went particularly crazy. Houses have a way of making us feel safe and secure and no-one wants to see their home price drop.

We know this policy will cost us votes. But ensuring that every Kiwi can feel that same sense of safety and security with a fair housing market is the right thing to do. So we'll keep standing by it. To make housing affordable, Opportunity will:

Introduce a Land Value Tax (as part of our tax reset) to bring house prices down and redirect investment into the productive economy. A Land Value Tax makes housing more affordable by making land banking less profitable and encouraging high-density development.

Launch a modern house building boom to reduce our 80,000 home shortage nationwide by:

• Supporting streamlined processes for building tiny homes, sleepouts and extensions — without compromising on quality or safety.
• Simplifying zoning, with a smaller, nationally consistent set of zones that protect productive farmland, civic spaces and heritage buildings — while allowing housing to be built where needed at the appropriate densities.
• Zoning for mixed-use and allowing construction of extensions for work or community spaces and shops.
• Supporting offsite builders who take on apprentices.
• Backing reputable developments with affordable housing, by underwriting to take the 'bust' out of the 'boom-bust' cycle.
• Incentivising quality with low-cost loans and refunding GST collected during construction to Councils for high environmental standard builds.

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