Anyone can buy a house: NZPIF

But the question still is, at what price?

The NZPIF calculator is based on the scenario of an Auckland couple with two children.

Users can enter their household income and the calculator will show what allowances and grants are available to them, how much they will need to save, what value home they can expect to purchase and how long it will take them to pay off the mortgage.

It works on the assumption that they save one year's worth of income as a deposit.

The calculator shows that a family on one income of $30,000 would take 6.5 years to save a $30,000 deposit for a home.

They wwould then get another $16,000 through KiwiSaver and take  23.5 years to pay off the mortgage on a $220,000 property.

A family earning $60,000 would take 6.3 years to save a deposit of $60,000, get a KiwiSaver grant of $10,000 and a Kiwisaver employer contribution of $11,340, taking them to a deposit of $81,340 on a $308,000 home.

A family has to be earning $145,000  before they can afford to buy a $620,000 property with a $184,580 deposit down.

Barfoot and Thompson has reported an average sale price of more than $600,000 in Auckland for the past several months.

But the NZ Property Investors Federation says: “It appears we don’t have a housing affordability crisis, but a housing expectation problem and a housing priority dilemma.”