Kerre Woodham: Do young people still see homeownership as a goal?

Back in the day, when I first got this job, I was desperate to buy a house.

All of a sudden I was earning enough to pay a mortgage, but after years of living on a waitress's wages and being a single mum, I didn't have the deposit.

I would now be able to start saving for one, there was a bit left over after expenses, which was a new and wonderful feeling.

But it seemed such a swizz to be paying more than a mortgage in rent every week when that could be going towards a house and security for my daughter and me.

I was very lucky then that my partner, later husband, now ex husband, had a rental unit in the South Island that could be used as security for us to move into a cottage in Grey Lynn.

He had the security, I had the wage, it was a beautiful thing until it wasn't.

Um, nobody wanted to live in Grey Lynn at the time, wasn't at all fashionable. And although I thought it was a palace, our home was described in a story I did with a magazine as shabby.

But we loved it, absolutely loved it, and it was our home for 20 years, which, to make a short story very long, is why I think it's a jolly good idea from National to increase first home buyers' access to low deposit mortgages if they become government.

Their stated intention is to get home ownership rates back to their historical peak of 74% and that was achieved by the country back in the early 90s. Since then, home ownership has fallen to about 66%.

Now there are all sorts of benefits for the community, for the country, not just for the young families who own their own homes, if you get home ownership rates up. It's a worthy aspiration.

Right now, first home buyers account for nearly 29% of all home purchases, representing the largest single cohort in the current housing market as they take advantage of the correction in the housing market.

So will lowering the deposit required make a difference? CoreLogic New Zealand chief property economist Kelvin Davidson was fairly neutral when he spoke to Early Edition this morning.