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@kirwan how is that any different to now? or even a couple of years ago? we are in the shit and have been for a while now - with Govts trying to nudge things rather than making more sweeping changes. The RMA changes sound like the most substantive change that both major parties agree with (details ob to be thrashed out), so is the rest just largely working around the fringes with more/less (direct) input from Govt depending on party.
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@paekakboyz said in NZ Politics:
@kirwan how is that any different to now? or even a couple of years ago? we are in the shit and have been for a while now - with Govts trying to nudge things rather than making more sweeping changes. The RMA changes sound like the most substantive change that both major parties agree with (details ob to be thrashed out), so is the rest just largely working around the fringes with more/less (direct) input from Govt depending on party.
The changes aimed at landlords and investors seems more like food for the masses, an easy target
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@canefan said in NZ Politics:
The changes aimed at landlords and investors seems more like food for the masses, an easy target
but not consequence free.
I suspect in 18 months there will be lots of hand wringing about the even worse rental affordability and the lack of rentals available... with no linkage back to measures keeping people out of the business.
Honestly, I still think supply side is the problem. If you build a shedload of infrastructure and then houses, prices will stabilise and even ease back
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@paekakboyz said in NZ Politics:
@kirwan how is that any different to now? or even a couple of years ago? we are in the shit and have been for a while now - with Govts trying to nudge things rather than making more sweeping changes. The RMA changes sound like the most substantive change that both major parties agree with (details ob to be thrashed out), so is the rest just largely working around the fringes with more/less (direct) input from Govt depending on party.
As others have stated, the problem is supply. So the changes need to be made here first. The unintended consequence of making it less desirable to be a property invester is less rental stock.
So rental prices will go up and people will be squeezed harder.
And it's always worth pointing out when a government flat out lies to get elected.
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I do wonder what any government can really do to influence the housing market. It's not like successive ones haven't tried. It was National who introduced the brightline test after all.
Sure markets are usually ruled by supply and demand, but NZ has uniquely tweaked that by a) incentivising rental ownership b) distrust of other investment options and c) the regulatory environment.
Given a and b have proven hard to influence a concerted effort at c is well overdue.
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@dogmeat said in NZ Politics:
I do wonder what any government can really do to influence the housing market.
bottom line: stimulate supply, constrict demand
- open up land for development by shifting the balance of environmental effects against housing
- restructure council financials to allow them to actually fund infrastructure and incentivise growth in their areas
- reduce demand side by reducing rate of immigration
- simplify building consent regime to allow unit type consenting of prefab or standard dwellings to be built (may be happening?)
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@nzzp said in NZ Politics:
@dogmeat said in NZ Politics:
I do wonder what any government can really do to influence the housing market.
bottom line: stimulate supply, constrict demand
- open up land for development by shifting the balance of environmental effects against housing
- restructure council financials to allow them to actually fund infrastructure and incentivise growth in their areas
- reduce demand side by reducing rate of immigration
- simplify building consent regime to allow unit type consenting of prefab or standard dwellings to be built (may be happening?)
I'm not in favour of extending our city boundaries more than they already are. In Akl the Unitary Plan already has 35% of our growth coming from greenfield developments over the next 25 years. I don't actually buy into the there's nowhere to build argument. IMO it's more a case of property prices have been rising so fast developers have been land banking.
Reducing immigartion is also a bit misleading. It was a biggish issue in the 2017 election despite being falsely portrayed by NZF and (to a lesser extent) Labour. Immigration was already falling by then. Nett migration is the key and a big part of that has been less emigration as the grass has been seen as less green overseas. Plus we have some serious labour shortages including ironically in construction. Finally a large part of our immigration has actually been in the education sector which personally I'd gladly see contract permanently as it yet another example of a low profit, low value, high volume industry that does little for the overall benefit of NZ Inc.
Like I said. No easy answers. Which is why successive governments have failed.
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@dogmeat fair.
I'm thinking more of the longer term. Brownfield development is very very expensive, and I'm way more comfortable than you to open up more land.
Immigration (or net migration) is more of a long term thing - it stimulates demand.
There are no easy answers, but right now we're not doing much...
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@nzzp said in NZ Politics:
Brownfield development is very very expensive
Auckland Council’s Future Urban Land Supply
Strategy (FULSS) has estimated that greenfield
infrastructure will cost around $140,000 per
dwelling on average, far more than in brownfields. -
@dogmeat said in NZ Politics:
@nzzp said in NZ Politics:
Brownfield development is very very expensive
Auckland Council’s Future Urban Land Supply
Strategy (FULSS) has estimated that greenfield
infrastructure will cost around $140,000 per
dwelling on average, far more than in brownfields.That's from 2018.
Ask Piritahi or other Council folk what they think now... seriously, I think they have realised the challenges.
The other challenge with intensification in brownfield is the cost of getting to 3 storeys. No one (except probably Ockham) seems able to actually make money out of apartments
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@dogmeat said in NZ Politics:
@nzzp so the company that makes money out of apartments is the one that builds quality apartments. Go figure
I like Ockham. Great developments, innovative and socially responsible. Auckland needs more like them
Agree completely.
It's just weird though right - massive demand, huge prices ... but people can't make money? WTAF?
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@dogmeat The way I see it, the Government's worldview leads them to see would-be first time buyers who are shut out of the property market and renters as being basically the same: unfeeling capitalism's casualties. But they're actually not, they are in competition with each other. In a market with constrained supply every house bought by a first timer is a house lost to a renter. As many have said the answer is to increase supply and in a truly free market that's what you would see happening now. But it's not free, they can't resist tinkering with it.
Then you've got their schizophrenic relationship with the rental provider sector. They seem to dislike the concept of landlords but have done absolutely nothing to provide or even encourage an alternative. Housing associations? Co-operatives? You could argue Whanau Ora does a bit of that but in NZ publicly provided housing seems to be targeted solely at the poor. There's no model to recognize that many people who don't qualify as poor need to rent too and would be happy to do so if their rent didn't exceed what a mortgage would cost.
I'll be interested to see what they do next. They seem to be constrained by fear of how their ideological base may react if they don't address housing, and how the voting public will react if they do. So we end up with this kind of gesture politics that doesn't really address any of the problems.
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@jc I agree with everything you wrote but I would say it is every government not just the current one.
It's why we need more companies like Ockham with their rent to own (two entire developments that weren't available to purchase), more long term rental agreements, more housing associations. I agree totally that we need to remove the stigma and increase the affordability of rental accommodation.
Crazy capital gains removes all sorts of imperatives like - you don't even need a rental income, you don't need to develop that property all the values in the land anyway.
I don't think there's one simple answer and I do think that in Auckland at least the supply side of the market is (slowly) responding but this overheating of the housing market isn't healthy for anyone other than those with property to dispose of. Talking to it a lot of the increase is led by FOMO. It really is a archetypal bubble....
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I like Denmark's urban density planning. Sir Miles Warren was a fan of their architecture and tried to bring some of it to Chch but I reckon some of that staggered Utzon housing could work on sloping blocks as well.
Speaking of building, when do the govt announced housing decrees become law or are they already in play? I'm thinking esp of the brightline test-5 to 10 years? That should cause some rumbles with investors.I also have a stupid idea, what if the govt made it easier to invest in non-property investments? Can't, won't? It would not help because NZers are too fixated on property investment?
Housing hornets' nest