Comment by Tade0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tade0 | Hacker News Reader

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Coming from Poland I had a very similar fist impression when I started living in-and-out in Italy.

Nevertheless at some point I started thinking: Maybe these guys are right and I'm wrong? Maybe there's more to life than this "fight for survival" and I shouldn't value my ability to do so so highly?

There's a level of, for lack of a better word, satisfaction I see on people's faces daily in Italy that I know I won't achieve, because I was born in a poor country in a rather poor family and had to claw myself out of poverty.

I think it's precious. I wish my (future) children lived in a world where they can have, like my SO likes to put it, "two youths" - one spent on doing personally meaningful, fulfilling things, and the other doing what's necessary to live an independent life.

Yes, when I first started living in NZ I was baffled by completely alien culture and the way of living. But then I began to understand it, like it, enjoy it (to some extent)!

And I respect people if they choose to live this way, not fight for survival, enjoy their lives. But I don't think it is fair if later they start complaining about lack of money, lack of career and expensive houses they can't afford and start asking the government (read 'other people') to pay for it.

Its not a matter of asking other people to pay, it's a matter of there not being enough housing stock and houses being seriously unaffordable relative to wages. BTW: NZ workers do the OECD average amount of work per year.

That is what concerns me: if they can't afford a house, then why don't they buy an apartment?

There are apartments in Auckland for $300-400k, which is even cheaper than affordable KiwiBuild houses ($500-650k).

$3-400k gets a tiny 1 bedroom apartment downtown, which I would have loved early in my career. The kiwibiuild homes are being aimed at families and necessarily much larger.

I do agree that NZers have this strange desire for bungalows in the suburbs, commuting and mowing lawns. I'm in an apartment downtown and love it.

And how much are yearly Body Corporate Fees for these apartments?

Also have you look at the minutes from BC meetings? Going through just a handful will turn you off purchasing an apartment in no time.

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