New Zealand bans most offshore residential real-estate ownership

[inactivist]

@NovaeDeArx

I’m all for them blocking off the creation of a new housing bubble, I just can’t figure out how you’d prevent all the vast number of ways of channeling money into a potentially profitable investment

There are some other interesting methods.The government of British Columbia slapped a 15 percent tax on foreign house buyers and within a month the volume of house sales had slumped by more than a quarter.

@JonS

If your home (and not-coincidentally everyone else’s home ) falls in value, what does that matter?

The value only matters if you’re trying to cash out.

This investment property bandwagon obsession is a strange situation!
An animal unable to build a nest for itself and forced to rent one off another with multiple nests.
People borrowing to buy multiple houses in order to leave an equity nest egg for their children meanwhile other people’s children can’t afford a house due to the reduced supply.

[JonS]

Who does the foreign buyer ban affect and will it make housing more affordable?

[dawnzed]

My hometown is unaffordable. I moved far away to find a place affordable enough to rent, never mind buy.

[Michael_R_Smith]

@inactivist

with Australians the second largest but you hear little similar anti-Australian sentiment.

Plenty of Kiwis own homes in Australia too…

[dommerdoodle]

My local property tax is jumping rather dramatically because the county auditors decided my home was suddenly worth $20K than current market price. I can dispute it, of course, but now I have to hire my own appraiser to conduct an audit. I am not trying to cash out yet, but real estate value does have economic impact beyond just selling.

[Stripes]

@lydi_rae

We have a huge problem with the percentage of income spent on rent and I know it sounds nutty, but what if the rent caps were based on income, rather than what the elite end of the market will bear?

Lets say you own a house you rent out for your medical expenses, or retirement income or something. Your current tenets choose not to renew their lease and move out. You still have a mortgage on the place, but you have had it for a while, so it only eats part of the market rate rent.

Now if you get someone with a “good income” you will make money, if you get someone with low income you won’t be allowed to charge enough to make money.

What do you do?

Everything you can to make sure whoever you rent it to has a good income. Even if it isn’t legal, so long as you won’t get caught. Even if it is only a guess. What car does the renter come in? BMW? Smile and show off the house. Beat up Honda missing a mirror? “The house can’t be shown today, I got the schedule wrong, it is being fumigated still”. Rode a bicycle in? “Sorry, the renters told me they are renewing the lease after all”, or if they are smart “The couple just before you put a deposit on it, but if you want to apply just in case they back out I brought the paperwork”

So would most people that “can afford” to lose some income, plus really not all that many people can afford to lose income, and nobody likes it. So everyone will game it.

Everyone also includes renters. Don’t get married, the low income person rents, the girlfriend/boyfriend with the higher income just “stays over”, instant rent discount!

I do agree we have a property problem. I just don’t know what the best thing to do about it is. My limited understanding of economics says something that increases supply is needed. The problem there is mostly developers prefer to make expensive properties, and people already living in a place object to new low income housing near them, but not so much to high end housing (one increases their own property values, the other mar or may not decrease it, but most people think it does). Many local governments listen to the objections. So it is hard to build anything inexpensive, and again most developers prefer the more expensive stuff anyway…

…and demand seems to be well well well ahead of supply, so just building “a little more” affordable housing probably won’t help much.

Fortunately nobody put me in charge, so I don’t really need to have an answer.