Housing focus for statistics

Government inspectors are going to be looking in houses. Photo: Supplied.

Statistics New Zealand is about to look into housing in the country, by inspecting the age stage and characteristics of hundreds of New Zealand homes.

In addition, this year's General Social Survey will ask participants in at least 400 homes to take part in a physical assessment of their house undertaken by an independent, trained assessor.

The one-hour assessment, which is voluntary, will collect data on the house itself, including things like building size, insulation and heating, as well as the general condition.

'Assessors will just be looking - they won't need to poke into walls or disturb the house or contents in any way to get the information they need,” says household surveys future development manager Calli Seedall.

'We often hear about damp, cold homes that can put the health of New Zealanders at risk. The information gathered in the GSS and housing assessments will increase understanding of housing quality in New Zealand.”

The General Social Survey is undertaken every two years and asks questions about the well-being of thousands of New Zealanders.

Hundreds of homes will be assessed as part of the nationwide survey on housing quality.

People renting and owner-occupiers will be invited to take part in the physical-house assessments, but all individual information will be completely anonymised.

'Researchers and policy makers will be able to see the overall results of the assessments, but they won't know who owns or rents any given home represented in the data,” says Calli.

The individual inspection results and temperature readings will not be used for compliance purposes by any agency.

This survey is a collaboration between agencies. The physical housing assessment survey is jointly funded by independent building research organisation BRANZ and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment MBIE.

Land Information NZ LINZ are working with BRANZ to design the digital tool that will be used for the assessments and Otago School of Medicine are also supporting temperature taking at all homes included in this year's GSS.

The 2018 General Social Survey will run from April 2018 to March 2019, with initial results due out later in 2019.

The upcoming census on 6 March 2018 will include new questions on mouldy homes. See Census will take stock of our mouldy homes.

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