National penalising Kiwi homebuyers | The Jackal

24 Jun 2017

National penalising Kiwi homebuyers

The National led government appears to not give a damn that the levels of home ownership in New Zealand are continuing to decline.

After much public and media concern about housing, the government through the Reserve Bank changed lending criteria in 2013. However this has simply penalised many Kiwi’s who’re trying to purchase their first home.

But if that wasn’t bad enough, the crackdown on lending to first home buyer’s in New Zealand has meant overseas buyers now have an advantage over Kiwi's… and because of Trump and mainland Chinese wanting to get their capital out of China, they’ve been snapping up our houses like nobodies business.

Today, The NZ Herald reported:

First-time house buyers worst hit as house sales fall by 30% 
"Investors who need a loan have been shut out of the market but cash investors have picked up their share of sales - not first-home buyers or movers," said QV spokeswoman Andrea Rush.

"Cash buyers purchasing property in New Zealand from overseas or new migrants moving with cash reserves often have the advantage over New Zealanders of higher foreign currency exchange and they are not impacted by the lending restrictions."

Rush said because the Government does not accurately measure the number of residential sales to foreign buyers or new migrants there was no way of knowing what share of sales were going to those offshore.

The topic is obviously an election issue, and rightly so. Younger New Zealander’s need to understand that if National continues to govern for the baby boomers and foreign interests alone, many of them will never be able to afford a house.

That’s not only bad for the many generations shut out of home ownership; it’s bad for society in general.