Bernard Hickey’s view, worth highlighting this quote…
My view: The Reserve Bank is just a third of the way through its programme and mortgage rates could fall to just 1.5% next year, unleashing another 20-30% rise in house prices. That is politically unsustainable at a time when property owners just got $100b richer through the value of their homes and Jacinda Ardern is refusing to spend $5.2b more to raise benefits more because she says the Government is short of money.
The Reserve Bank should be directly funding a $100b programme of Government infrastructure spending over 10 years to massively improve housing affordability and address climate change by flooding the housing market with 100,000 new homes and building the public transport and water infrastructure needed to reach carbon net zero by 2050.
The post-1989 era of focusing the Government on having an independent inflation-targeting central bank and limiting the size of Government (to around 30% of GDP in NZ) by targeting net debt of 20% of GDP is politically unsustainable when the fallout of Covid-19 is hitting young renters, Māori, Pacifica and women hardest, while property and share owners celebrate hundreds of billions of unearned and untaxed wealth.
These should be bi-partisan targets where independent authorities (RBNZ, Kāinga Ora, NZTA and the Climate Commission) pull the infrastructure, tax and spending levers to achieve that.
We should be targeting just a 10th of poor families spending more than 30% of their income on housing (it trebled to 55% over the last 30 years) and getting on track for net carbon zero by 2050.
As a home owner it makes no difference to me what my house is worth unless I am planning on selling up and downgrading. Great my shares are worth more but the dividends, the bit I live on are the same or down and I get no interest on my secure kiwisaver or term deposits.
The main people I see benefiting from low interest rates are speculators and realestate agents.
I agree, a 100 billion spent on social housing will drop rents and hence all the speculating.
My landlord came to us with a $80 a week increase and we responded we would challenge that. Apart from the out and out greed being constantly pushed on TV3 and TV1 news what drives a landlord to think people can magic up extra $80 a week?
Avarice has got truly out of hand.
Our whole society will crumble to feed the greed of a few. The awful irony being that greed can never be satisfied, it is just a destructive force.
Agree; make a list now, and at least a few of the avaricious traitors will feel street justice during and after the collapse 😉
Grease the Guillotine.
Not a lot of information to go on? What’s the market rate in your area? When was your last increase?
Labour banned increase during their illegal lockdown so landlords are possibly claiming back increases all at once. The new healthy homes law also means that many rentals need work, thus rents need to go up to pay for it.
I playing devils advocate here, but another scenario is that your disgust leaves you with no option to leave, in which the landlord thinks “great I can charge full market rates” so possibly wants to get rid of you.
Like I said, what’s the full story?
The full story is landlords interest costs are down heaps.
Economic planning for New Zealand is determined by the F.I.R.E. sector not by the government. That sector supports the speculator class for capital gains. Our Neokindliberal government has abdicated any responsibility to act for all the people of New Zealand! It cares not for the chasm of inequality and poverty and hopelessness which has resulted from allowing the foreign banks to loot our society. It cares not for child poverty, homelessness, that inequality has produced. It supports the greedy religion of landlordism.
Our Neokindliberal government is impotent and mindless ( not even understanding the peroblem) wagged by the tail of greedy vested interests. Conclusion it is incompetent.
The Reserve Bank has set off an orgy of spending on the safest investment in town, housing! As a country and a political and economic system NZ really encourages spending on housing, it does everything in its power to encourage debt and there are few downsides for those in the market with houses -so far.
Enter the PM, trying to blend into the background. Now being rightly called out for doing nothing she is quoting Neo Lib mantra of leaving the RB alone, which may soothe the few purists left out there but it is doing absolutely nothing for first home buyers and renters. It’s like God set in place the Reserve Bank Act and only God can repeal or amend it. It’s impossible to her it seems. She also seems oblivious to the fact people are taking on phenomenal debt just to get a roof over their heads if buying or blowing a substantial part of their incomes on rent just to put a roof over their heads.
It is hopeless to suggest they tinker with first home grants, actually, it’s beyond useless. All that is, is fuel to the housing price fire as if it needed anything else incendiary. In fact, the moment they make adjustments another 5% growth will have inflated the market back out of reach.
It is abundantly obvious by the Reserve Bank’s 1980’s legislation that its interests do not lie in the less well off in this country and by its very actions, its create more on a daily basis.
Jacinda wants to go away so badly. She has no plans to deal with this growing problem. Her musings are not cutting it. But unless she does something real and looks at amending the RB legislation so it delivers to most and not the few, it’s going to carry on spinning out of control.
The Minister for Child Poverty doesn’t seem to know what the extremely high cost of housing is doing to child poverty.
Tight spots like this one for the PM illustrate why she has an unfinished copy of a book by mild critic of capital, French Academic Thomas Pikkety, on her shelf! Her and Robbo are welded to Roger’n‘Ruth’s toxic legacy. “Blairism NZ style” will continue until the paid working class and unpaid workers get organised and take the Labour Caucus on in creative ways. The prime issues are WINZ/MSDs punishment model, raising benefits, and housing and building a shitload more houses and apartments, and dental care for kids in agony, and…you get my drift.
If the Māori Caucus and Māori Party join in, all the better. But this Labour Govt. is in for a shock sooner rather than later if capitalist economists like Bernard are more onto it than the country’s Prime Minister.
Jacinda Arden is the top ranking NZ member of Pikketty’s Brahmin Left : making a secure and comfortably paid living from managing the lives of others, notably the poor.
Housing costs are the biggest contributor to families living in poverty.
The Prime Minister says her reason for being in politics is to fix child poverty. She has 12 years Parliamentary experience but no ideas about what’s wrong in housing or what needs to be done.
Has she ever mentally connected the two issues – the cost for low income families of getting a house or renting, and the poverty it inflicts on the children of those families?
The key govt has dealt Kiwis a terrible blow with record immigration and cheap bonded off shore labour. Mix that with speculation by off shore investors and land bankers, all unregulated with no caps on prices or quantity.
Building a lot more homes may not even catch up with increasing numbers and the extension of infrastructure to service more homes and people.
A lot of guessing going on and gib words of hope when we are staring at tragic poverty, living in cars and sliding into deeper debt with no benefit increases in sight. Suicide rates are high as kids face such a hopeless society.
Meanwhile key and co laugh over pulling another pony tail and getting away with that too.
A radical approach but all first time home owners can purchase with no deposit, all speculators/ investors 100 %. Now let’s see if this works?
Your first suggestion actually has merit. I won’t comment on the second, because it would actually have the reverse affect…the 1% will become the 0.1%
The reverse effect how so?
Wit a toss, breath, humanity, called breath all us socialists
Capitalisms exploit for its god profit, is the truth, and is not capitalism a cancer on our living breathing.
Good to see Sir Michael Cullen has seen the light and is now advocating Social Credit policy.
There is some hope after all.
Grant Roberston – pay attention!!!!! You’re Finance minister of a govt. with a dream mandate and an ongoing crisis to boot (one that didn’t have to be invented, as has been done previously, to justify major policy shifts).
Behave like a f@cking Labour politician, rather than a National-lite traitor.
Everyone’s got a weird solution when a simple one is staring us in the face…
You guys are asking the govt to exercise its powers. All it has to do is override councils to release land. End of problem.
No,wrong ,more land more investment opportunities for property speculators. Slowing down speculators will at least give those who want to live in their own home a chance.
Makes no difference. They are happy to pay any CGT because even after that, there’s more money in than leaving it in the bank. Simple maths.
Besides, without speculators, there’d be no new development. It’s like Martyn investing his time and money in his Blog Site punting on revenue coming in from…somewhere. Hopefully it does.
You should all try it some time instead of driving from the backseat.
How are you’re numbers on property speculators creating new development over purchasing existing homes? Simple math.
I could say I”d drive from the front but there is only room for the one percent.
Why dont those in the front seat not allow for those in the back seat a chance to drive? Because the can!
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