Housing the moochers

Here's a question for those of you that follow mathematical economics: How much do government subsidies support the housing market?

Lindsay Mitchell has some figures showing how much is mooched by mortage- and rent-payers -- $62 a week on average -- and how many are mooching: 245,800 'clients' -- which with one 'client' per home amounts to nearly a quarter of New Zealand's housing stock housing people who mooch off other people to help pay their rent or their mortgage. One in four. Frightening. (And that's in addition to the two-thirds of New Zealanders on the mooch via Working 'Welfare for Families.')

So my question to all you readers with your economics equations at your fingertips and your fingers a-twitch over your calculators is this: What would removing the Accomodation Supplement do to housing prices? What does it to rental levels? And just how much does the Accomodation Supplement act as a direct subsidy to landlords?

Feel free to post your answers below.
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LINKS: You might be paying your next-door neighbour's mortgage - Lindsay Mitchell
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TAGS: Economics, Politics-NZ, Welfare