Should you drain your KiwiSaver to buy a house?

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking The Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's whether it's worth draining your retirement savings to buy your first home. Hosted by Frances Cook.<br /><br />Scraping together a deposit for your first home can be a fraught exercise. House prices are through the roof, and in some areas, only getting worse.<br /><br />Take the latest data from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.<br /><br />Last month it revealed that finding an affordable home was getting harder for first-home buyers.<br /><br />It's particularly bad for those who live in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, or Tauranga.<br /><br />So, the vast majority of the country's young people.<br /><br />The solution held up to this is often to use KiwiSaver. Your savings go out automatically and get boosted by a three percent employer contribution, as well as $521 a year from the Government.<br /><br />But the problem is that your KiwiSaver is meant to be for retirement.<br /><br />There are plenty of personal finance experts who argue you should leave it alone,  and save for your house in other ways.<br /><br />I called up Dr Aaron Gilbert, associate professor for AUT's Business School, to discuss the dilemma.<br /><br />We talked about how to supercharge your KiwiSaver savings, the pros and cons of using that for a house, and what other options there are for a person to get into their first home.<br /><br />For the interview, listen to the podcast. <br /><br />If you have a question about this podcast or an idea for the next one, come and talk to me about it.<br /><br />I'm on Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/" rel="noopener">https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/</a><br />Instagram  <a href="https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz" rel="noopener">https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz</a>/ <br />Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancesCook" rel="noopener">https://twitter.com/FrancesCook</a>