Any worker can own a home, according to the NZ Property Investors’ Federation, which has released a Home Affordability Planning Calculator. Federation president Andrew King said "housing has been deemed unaffordable so often that it is now considered a fact". King criticised the ratio of house prices to incomes, which currently stands at 5.4, with 3 being the proposed ideal level, as a crude measure of housing affordability as it doesn’t take account of historic low interest rates and does not include Government subsidies and grants.
