KEY POINTS:
- What do you think? Send us Your Views on National's first-home policy.
National is promising that grants for first-home buyers on modest incomes will be doubled - to up to $20,000 for a couple buying a newly built home - if it is re-elected next month.
The existing KiwiSaver grants of up to $10,000 a couple will remain for qualifying buyers of existing homes, but the cap on the value of the properties that can be bought has been lifted throughout the country. It will be $550,000 in Auckland.
The maximum purchase price would be $550,000 in Auckland, $450,000 in Hamilton, Western Bay of Plenty, Kapiti, Porirua, Hutt Valley, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch and $350,000 elsewhere.
But commentator Bernard Hickey said the policy would do nothing to solve the shortage in Auckland, where the council estimates a need for 13,000 new homes a year for the next three decades.
