Tara Ward watches the new homegrown version of a beloved UK property series.
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In TVNZ’s new series AA Insurance Location Location Location New Zealand, two familiar faces step up as our own Kirstie and Phil: Jayne Kiely and Paul Glover. You might remember Kiely from her TV presenting roles in the 2000s, or recognise actor Glover from shows like Educators and 800 Words. Now, they’re real estate agents ready to help New Zealand house hunters find a home. “I’m your fairy godmother, dressed in a blue suit,” Glover jokes when he meets first home buyers Adam and Jesz.
Adam and Jesz need more than a fairy godmother in their search for a home on Auckland’s popular North Shore. Despite a budget of (Dr Evil voice) one million dollars, they’re exhausted from three years of open homes and auctions. “We’re a bit deluded, thinking maybe we can afford that, and finding out we’re nowhere near,” Jesz says. “I’m not going to lie, we’re up against it,” Glover warns them.
They’re not the only buyers who need Glover and Kiely’s help. There’s Tracy, who’s looking to upgrade with a budget of $1.6 million. And in episode two, Jayne helps Hamilton paramedic Sonya search for a healthy home in the $680,000 price range, while Paul meets Chantelle, who wants a bigger family home in South Auckland. “I’m really limited on budget. I’ve only got $700,000,” Glover tells Kiely, who grimaces in response.
Just like the UK version, each buyer is shown three different properties (some appear to be for sale through Ray White Real Estate, where both Kiely and Glover work). Tracy, who said she doesn’t like townhouses, is shown a townhouse. Sonya, who lives on a farm and wants a quiet, leafy suburb, is shown a third floor central city apartment. Glover takes Adam and Jesz to a house in west Auckland, where their million dollars will “go a lot further”. The small Te Atatū Peninsula house they look at has a starting price of $900,000, and will likely climb higher.
Buying a house has always been about compromise and sacrifice, and LLL slides across some of the challenges in today’s market. “With high interest rates and slow wage growth, the dream of owning your own home feels out of reach for many young people in Aotearoa,” it tells us. It also informs us that house prices have fallen since their peak in 2021, and that we’re now in a “buyers’ market”.
But that’s as far as LLL is willing to go – which is to say, there’s something off about making this show in the middle of a housing crisis, without fully acknowledging how tough things are or how we got here. New Zealand has some of the least affordable houses in the OECD. Home ownership rates are the lowest in 70 years. LLL NZ shows us plenty of expensive homes, but it doesn’t mention the impact of property investors on prices, and it’s unlikely that two real estate agents will shine a critical light on a complex system that they explicitly benefit from.
When Kiely reveals she had to sell her car to buy her first home at age 27 in Queenstown, it feels particularly out of touch. This Stuff piece from 2022 states that in the mid-1990s, when Kiely would have made that life changing purchase, the average New Zealand home cost $125,440, which was 3.2 times the average household income of $39,796. In 2022, the average house cost $977,158, 8.2 times the average household’s income. That’s a lot of cars to sell.
Of course, it’s not Kiely and Glover’s job to fix the housing market in one hour every Sunday night (though I would watch the crap out of that show, if they could), and they bring warmth and energy to each house hunt. But what LLL NZ does – perhaps unwittingly – is reflect how hard it is for today’s first home buyers to compete in a system that isn’t built for them, where one million Auckland dollars doesn’t buy you a million dollar view, let alone a house that isn’t plonked on top of a busy highway.
At least Adam and Jesz get their happy ending. They fall in love with the third property Glover shows them and secure it at auction for $50,000 over their million dollar budget. Their relief and joy is a reminder of everything home ownership represents: security, safety, a place to put down roots forever. This happy ending should have made LLL NZ feel as warm and comforting as the UK version, but somehow, it didn’t. Like being shown a $1.6 million dollar house with half a garage, it just felt a bit bleak.
Location Location Location NZ screens on Sunday nights at 7.30pm on TVNZ1 and streams on TVNZ+.