The housing market is tough, it is a dog-eat-dog world out there. 

Recently my partner and I have been trying to find a place to live and start a life together. 

Booming prices are forcing first home buyers to seek more financial help from their parents, in a trend threatening to widen the gap between the property haves and have nots.

A foresee a class system slowly being defined - that of land owners and renters. A modern-day feudal system. 

Funnily enough, that is where the term “landlord” originates. 

We haven’t come very far, really. 

House prices nationally are now 12.4 times the average wage due to a drop in home affordability in recent months, new Massey University analysis reveals.

The national median house price increased 5.1 per cent, or $40,000, over the February to May quarter, the university's latest Home Affordability report showed.

This, combined with a drop in wages in many regions, had led to a decline in home affordability of 6.8 per cent nationwide.

The national house price-to-income ratio also declined over the February to May quarter, with prices moving from 11.4 to 12.4 times average wages.

Massey University professor Graham Squires says, two years ago, the price-to-income ratio was 8.9, so it had now increased by 3.5 across all regions, which was significant and indicated a dramatic separation between prices and wages.

As a result, many young people are now relying on their parents to prop up their property deposits. 

While New Zealand has no official statistics, home loan brokers Mortgage Lab estimate the number locally to also be as high as 60 to 70 per cent.

The median price for residential property across New Zealand increased by 32.3 per cent from $620,000 in May 2020 to $820,000 in May 2021, the Real Estate Institute says.

Auckland prices leapt 27 per cent, from $905,000 in May 2020 to a record high of $1.148 million this year.

To make the matters worse, three out of four New Zealand children are moving house at least once before they turn 8, raising fears that falling home ownership is causing lasting harm to our next generation.

Forty per cent of Kiwi children now move regularly and those in rentals are at potentially greater risk as they bounce between different homes and schools far more often, according to the ground-breaking Growing Up in New Zealand study.

The findings are highlighted in the latest round of the Herald's Home Truths series, which today begins a week-long examination of possible causes and solutions for New Zealand's growing housing affordability crisis.

The director of Growing Up in New Zealand, Professor Susan Morton, says its symptoms were now beginning to show among the 6000 children her study had followed since 2010.

Families shifting more often faced a greater chance of moving into unstable, overcrowded, unaffordable or unsafe homes, she says.

That, in turn, could leave them susceptible to long-term developmental and health problems. 

We need to make housing a priority, whether that is building houses only eligible for first home buyers, or building a wider range of affordable housing developments, such as townhouses or apartments. 

Something needs to change because this slope easily becomes a giant social, cultural and political issue the longer it will be allowed to continue.