I always thought that the councils took huge amounts off subdivision developers for the infrastructure costs.
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I always thought that the councils took huge amounts off subdivision developers for the infrastructure costs.
Why do we have to blindly follow other countries' policies and said practices? We learn, adapt and do even better.
Currently, housing solutions are all piecemeal and ad his with no defined outcomes - just more state dependency and despondency.
Think of what the billions of dollars wasted each year on rental subsidies and emergency accommodation could be used for - a huge pool of funds to properly build houses on an ongoing basis and long term solution.
There is a potential maybe actual issue with high rise. People don't want to live in them. In the past investors have bought them as rentals, and if that slows then developers will not be able to finance the project. Dead in the water. The government has set aside a few hundred mill to prop up developers but who knows what that impact will be.
Investors have been buying up at similar rate to the last few years, except for the last couple of months when sales to the sector have been up. Why? Because LVRs are back in a few weeks and the government has announced there is a plan to have a plan (to have a plan?) to fix a housing crisis. Good chance that will impact 'evil and greedy landlords' (called speculators by politicians) so best to hop in now.
Even terrace housing is struggling to sell, as witness hundreds of apparently affordable Kiwibuild homes available to buy but selling ever so slowly with hundreds more under construction. And some being bought by taxpayers probably for social housing.
Emergency accommodation is wasted in the sense that it would be better to have real houses instead. But you can't divert that emergency money into houses as then there would be a bunch of people on the street in the meantime (while the houses were built).
Rental subsidies of some sort will always be necessary as part of the welfare state - unless we pay people more and many don't seem to like that idea (people against raising the minimum wage).
Not a simple problem and there won't be a simple solution.
Tens of thousands of vacant rentals, homes for sale (including Kiwibuild) and ads for flatmates. Maybe those in emergency housing should be supported into some of them. Cheaper than motels. And they are already there and built right now.
Maybe it is not so much an actual shortage then.
I believe that what the RBNZ does is part of market forces.
You cannot be serious. You really cannot. Whenever market forces look like tipping the balance in the buyers favour, we get this 'Deus ex Machina' of the Reserve Bank swooping in from the heavens and lowering interest rates, and now printing money - to the tune of $100 Billion to fund government spending and $28 Billion to retail banks for so-called 'Funding for Lending'....basically being pumped straight into the property market & bypassing savers / depositors.
This is not market forces. It really isn't. If the market was allowed to do it's own thing without the high-handed / heavy handed intervention at the stroke of a computer keyboard, then rising interest rates would be rewarding savers and bond holders & curbing speculative investment. This would quickly moderate house prices and start to restore the (broken) balance between saving and lending.
We see another poster saying "they had to do it, otherwise recession". We have made recession a dirty word, some monstrous thing that must not be allowed. Recessions are usually short and sharp, are nowhere near as bad as the hysterics make out, and offer the chance of 'creative destruction' and renewal. Bad businesses fail, malinvestment is punished, and the economic up-tick that results does so with the economy in a stronger position.
This is the steady creeping of the aims of socialism: something failing due to a bad choice is 'unfair', therefore we must extend the blanket of socialism across all households and businesses when it comes to the consequences of their capitalistic endeavours. Everyone will be bailed-out if things go wrong.
With the economic cycle being suppressed, it becomes constipated with debt: we are just headed for stagnation as we move forward loaded down with debt and with no incentive to save or to invest in the productive parts of the economy.
Now we come to the politicians meddling in all of this: Labour changed the mandate of the Reserve Bank to include full employmrent as one of its prime goals. So now the Reserve Bank must act to defeat the economic cycle. What was previously the preserve of the government via economic policy has now been pushed on to the Reserve Bank, muddling their focus with both inflation & employment targets.
We have moved to a system of "full Keynes, all the time" - rather than dealing with a clear recession with a short, sharp burst of government spending, economists and the government and Reserve Bank feel they have to throw the kitchen sink at it every time GDP figures start to dip. They are clearly over-egging the pudding, and we see the consequences in out fo control asset prices.
So this is not market forces as all. It is the exact opposite. It is total control by the state, in an increasing - and ultimately futile - effort to defeat the economic cycle.
The alternative is deflation and the effects of that.
The current policy is good all round but there are side effects. I'd rather have that problem than everything else though.
For many kiwis housing is their retirement plan and they don't really want it solved. Similar to australia and the UK in this respect.
I truly and sincerely believe people like you are the real problem. The property 'market' (ponzi scheme) is a government guaranteed rort that is costing us billions and will end up costing us trillions. The syphoning of taxpayer money into the pockets of speculators is happening in many forms, not least of which is landlords increasing rents and taxpayers paying for it via 'accomodation supplements' (taxpayer subsidies).....which further incentivizes investing in the housing 'market' and leads to higher house prices. It is a vicious cycle with no end in sight.
Just saying housing is many people's retirement plan is a rather bland answer. Fair enough to have a plan for retirement, but this system of outrageously large capital gains sustained and gauranteed by central bank / government stimulus and subsidies & suppression of interest rates....it is just taking the p*ss, it really is.
Unfortunately for everyone, a large group of very greedy and entitled people are leadimng the country down the road to hell.
Now why would anyone (in the right mind) buy (and invest) in a Kiwibuild home if they know what they are doing?
I have heard stories of owners waking up one fine morning and find that state tenants have moved in next door, and bluntly, we all know what that means for property values.
Completely agree. Buyers have to live in their purchase for a 3 year period and not necessarily with nice marketing managers and junior doctors next door. Though I hear on the grapevine that it is easy enough to get an exemption. Then the buyers will move on and tenants will move in. Huge developments like Unitec were to be a mix of Kiwibuild, social housing and private sector.
No need to hold our breath though - it was estimated that at current progress Kiwibuild would be done and dusted in 400 years. Of course that was before the Great Kiwibuild Reset and now there seems to be no plan at all.
NZ desperately needs a circuit breaker to stop this vicious cycle now of high rents for those who cannot afford ever increasing house prices which in turn push rents up even higher etc etc etc.
I honestly thought Kiwibuild was a brilliant idea which coupled with a CGT would be the circuit breaker.
Unfortunately .... :t_down:
Well what about substantially and temporarily increasing the Accommodation Supplement for those in emergency housing. Give them a couple of hundred a week extra for 6 months, paid to the landlord, plus budgeting support. Other things being equal that will make it possible for them to pay private sector rents.