House prices kept going up through December, Government and investors blamed
Property analysts have blamed skyrocketing house prices on the Government’s unwillingness to do anything that might bring them down and people who own multiple properties taking advantage of cheap lending.
Values rose quickly in 2020 despite the recession and pandemic, defying predictions of a massive slump. New data released Wednesday by CoreLogic shows that trend continued right up until the end of the year, values up another 2.6 percent in December alone.
The 6.1 percent quarterly rise is the biggest since 2004. Annual double-digit percentage rises were seen in most regions – Gisborne led the way, with values up 30.4 percent in 2020, followed by Whanganui (24.9), Palmerston North (20.3) and Rotorua (19.2).
The main centres were no exception, with values up 15.4 percent in Wellington, 13.1 percent in Dunedin, 11.7 percent in Hamilton, 9.1 percent in Auckland and 6.2 percent in Christchurch.
The first baby steps of this new Government was to endorse a racist drug law, rule out a wealth tax, rule out lifting benefits before Christmas and refuse to mandate 10 sick days now.
The less said about Kelvin’s appalling lack of leadership over the prison riot the better.
Labour have bewilderingly however locked us into a vast debt trap to fund trickle down economics by printing billions and instead of loaning it to the Government to rebuild our infrastructure, poorly funded public services and refund our welfare state, Labour have green lighted it going to corporate banks to fuel property speculators in the hope the newly inflated paper wealthy spend that false sense of prosperity in the real economy to help the little guy.
Once again Labour use free market mechanics to try and fix a housing market wrecked by neoliberalism. KiwiBuild has become KiwiSpeculate!
If only Labour’s NeoKindness could help beneficiaries, renters, prisoners, the working class, kids in poverty, first time home owners & cannabis users the way it helps property speculators.
Labour have spent so much time saving NZ from Covid they have had no transformative vision as to what to do next.
I pointed this out 6 months ago.
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What did you expect? The Labour government are in a trap of their own making. They cannot afford to scare off those who voted for them so now are paralysed in fear/hesitation. There will be lots of seeming, actions that come with no actual political cost, but not much if any direct action you have been advocating for. Thus is the pattern until the next election.
There are no Chinese or other immegrants to blame, the increase cost of housing on . Truth is between councils and government we have not built enough houses. The prove of this is in Chch where the restrictions were reduced due to the earthquake rebuild and house prices have not increased anywhere near as much as other centres.
We also (Christchurch) have 400km of leaking pipes AND the ruins of a cathedral have clogging up our public square for over a decade. Town is often a Ghost Town – nobody wants to be there. Lianne Delzell (x Labour MP) should probably be up on fraud/donation charges and her old electorate (New Brighton) is still the most broken down!
Down here the DHB is a basket-case and the list goers on. Urban sprawl has been Christchurch’s saving grace.. the same urban sprawl the CCC has long complained about.
Saying all that, housing is still very expensive down here.. to both rent and buy.
I hear you in beneficiaries but When did they endorse “a racist drug law” , did they say “we like licking brown people up for smoking dope , nz made the right decision” ? no, the referendum just simply failed. They said from the beginning that they wouldn’t move on weed if it failed. They didn’t campaign on it cos it was a green party win in the coalition negotiations. Unfortunately It failed, they kept their word. That’s democracy. A majority voted no. It infuriates me that it failed . It’s pathetic that nz is the only country to vote no on a weed referent but it was absolutely predictable and I won’t a hundred bucks that I’d bet in 2018 that it wouldn’t pass because i knew that greens were going to be the champions of it and theyd it into a social justice issue not an economic and civil rights issue.
To say yes were invisible would be a compliment to the yes campaign. It’d probably be more successful had the people running it been invisible. When they were visible instead of talking about jobs, tax revenue, farmers being able to grow crops , hemp products like hemp plastics that would disolve in rivers water ways , the tourism and again revenue and jobs in a economic and employment crisis they talked about ” racism” “civil liberties” “what about cancer patients” and laughed or shot down anyone who had legitimate concerns about mental health issues when nzs mental health system is disgraceful. Clap backs and shut downs are great on Twitter not so much in real life. Honestly had Gareth Morgan not pissed everyone off by creating TOP and just being a prick in general after 2017, he or would have been the best person to run the weed campaign. You needed a rich person who understands the only thing kiwis care about : money/jobs instead of the assortment of Lefty’s, hippies and sjws. 51% of nzers can inflict their will on 49% of kiwis. It’s what happens every single election. After failing the yes campaign has been embarrassing, attacking the euthanasia and pill testing policies because they couldn’t convince a majority to vote for their policy. Yes needed someone like Key not Clark. Middle NZ doesn’t care or want to be lectured by Socialists on human rights. They wanna be told how much money they can make
As for housing. Same thing. It’s about money. If we’re being real. The 66% of kiwis own houses are pretty happy with their assets going up and would be furious if they went down. The vast majority of voters own houses. 66% own homes in a democracy with an 82% turn out. They are silently happy every time they look at their assets worth. Undeniably home owners are the biggest power block in NZ and they want to keep their wealth, parties like the greens can say they want to bring prices down because they never have to get more than 5% or worry about governing. The main parties know it’s a problem but if they were to ever say they wanted do anything about it they’d be brutalized by the majority of home owners who are the majority of voters.
No govt is going to do anything till the market collapses. Which is going to happen eventually till then people complaining about house prices are minority of people and they are basically yelling at clouds. As long as Jacinda keeps doing what she’s doing the majority will be happy and keep relecting her until either she steps down or a new political superstar arises in national. The majority of this country loves her, even most Tory’s. Her not caving to a small minority of angry people on left wing social media isn’t going to make her less popular. In fact it’ll make her more so with the majority of kiwis.
As for beneficiaries, I hope they are able to be transformational in this area. This is something Jacinda could easily sell if she wants you, give them and students another $50 come budget month and relax more restrictions. I won’t hold my breath though. If they don’t go up by another $20 it’d be disgusting.
If I sound brutal I don’t intend to be, it’s just we live in a majority rule nation. elections are popularity contest a d jacinda isn’t just prom queen she’s the goddess of popularity. People believe she saved their lives and shut out and mute anyone who criticizes her. No matter how unfair it is, majority rules. the majority of kiwis voted no on weed, it’s not the end of weed legalization movement but for about 80% of the country even most of the people who voted yes , for now , it is over for a while, for now. So we move on to something we can do, not bitterly shitting on things that are being legalized and as for housing … It’s a huge issue… But it’s not going to ever get sorted by wanting to make the majority of voters assets worth less than they are that’s Political suicide and to those on the left who believe gen z is going more progressive than millennials and come save us, the reality is that they will be what boomers were to their parents generation and rebel against the ideas of the previous generation like every single generation does, where millennials were about communities, progressive and wanting everything to be free except speech based off gen z humour alone they are more about the individual, libertarian (not conservative) , and don’t seem to be big on the censorship / free stuff bandwagon BUT we’ll find out in five to six years when there’s enough of them of age to really research their attitudes.
The point of this novel is , the left need to stop moaning and being bitter and start moving the Political conversation and in a way that brings middle NZ along and that’s not gonna happen by calling them all scum, trying to take away their assets wealth , calling them racist or talking down to them, it’s going to happen by telling them they’ll be better off economically by our side and until we are able to really move public opinion and make things we want what middle NZ wants , no major Political party is going to do any of the stuff we want. So lets spent the next three years moving that overton window.
This guy is on the money (sorry, bad pun)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsf_o0LqcvU&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0_gpPrr16orK8b7UVmphW5ELnpJlOP4vNbO_bVXHJdZzOUmMlgUQD_ng4
With bank deposit interest rates at all-time lows (negative in real terms) and equity markets in severe bubble-about-to-burst territory, and borrowing having never been cheaper, we have exactly what the market generates: FOMA (fear of missing out) in the housing market (almost everyone needs somewhere to live) and speculative gains for those who are already well up the social-financial pyramid.
Don’t ask the government to do anything because it is a ‘leave-it-to-the-market’ government.
You might as well complain about the price of bread (which invariably goes up); 45 cents; 95cents; $1.45; $1.95; $2.45; $2.95….ad infinitum, but probably at a faster pace in the future as fiat currencies turn into ‘toilet paper’ and the growing of wheat becomes ever more difficult.
Don’t you just love the way the British government insisted on Ireland exporting wheat during the potato famine that killed millions. We really are not far off that. It’s the economy….scared beyond life or even the planet in the eyes of the sociopaths and fuckwits in control of the day-to-day management of NZ Inc., NZ Ltd. or NZ Pty.
I saw that Jacinda was full of shit 4 years ago. I saw that Andrew Little was full of shit 8 years ago.
I guess everyone will eventually, when the system collapses.
“Coming to a country like yours, soon.”
Well said !!!!! @AFEWKNOWTHETRUTH
But we are pissing in the wind.
What part do Real Estate Agents play in the housing business – the larger the sale price, the larger the commission. If Labour were to display some guts and discard neoliberalism and do what is really necessary they would surely garner more votes at the next election.
Quite typical of this government really, poison being the cure.
I wonder when all those young people without any chance of buying a house will realise that Jacinda’s inaction is actually an act of cruelty, not the kindness she campaigned on.
I have said it repetitively but housing is a crisis that simply cannot be ignored. And it vant be tinkered with.
We must have a massive state guided intervention to build houses, now.
I have also been amazed that Jacinda A) cannot be see the immediacy of this crisis and B) appears to not give a shit evidenced by her musing that prices should keep on rising.
Telling people who are struggling to either maintain somewhere to live or afford somewhere to live to relax over the Christmas break is breathtakingly vacant.
Thinking cheesy PR like rolling ice creams is going to cut it for her people struggling to house themselves makes me think more and more how out of touch our PM has become.
This crisis is not too dissimilar to Covid. So WHEN is her and her government going to wake up?
Considering the recent prison unrest, all that can be expected from this government is possible future civil unrest.
Remember that Politicians are the most dishonest among us all sorry but politicians will always disappoint us as they are tied to the state by parliamentary rules which control them all.
Until we lock up those who set the rules for parliamentary order we will always hope in empty words from politicians.
Not much kindness for all of the groups mentioned in the title of this article from all on this site. Offering some hope to the many that are genuinely struggling to survive in our beautiful country would be a good start. We are still better of than many other countries where covid is wreaking havoc and leadership in dealing with this pandemic is lacking as is the benefit of collectivism. We have all made sacrifices some more than others and we need to keep working together if we want to continue to have the freedoms many others don’t have. We can not take our foot of the pedal the pandemic has highlighted our dependence on too much foreign labour and too much immigration. We need to sort this and stop whinging about trivial things.
Think of the housing market like a Ponzi scheme. We are so far down the rabbit hole on this one that this is the only choice for political animals such as Grunter and the Blairite. They don’t want to play the political equivalent of musical chairs in a room without chairs so they will pump the tire up a little more and hope it doesn’t pop. Like a lot of the west we are one economic crisis off massive house price stagflation. Think Japan but for a couple more decades. Politically the party in control when this occurs will sheet the blame even though both sides are as much to blame.
In the interim little Aotearoa will continue to use the property market as their personal credit card. Turkeys turning on the oven springs to mind.
Dead right, FtT.
The worst aspect of the housing Ponzi scheme is that many of the dwellings that are currently fetching extraordinarily high prices have an intrinsic value akin to a cabin on the Titanic.
Many proud owners of shitty boxes crammed into ghettos are going to find their shitty boxes are unsellable when the next global financial crisis finally erupts…almost certainly in 2021. Despite all the hype about vaccines, each day that passes leaves the world in a worse state than the previous day, and the ‘headwinds’ get stronger and stronger as time passes.
I must admit I am astonished the powers that be have been able to keep the Ponzi scheme running as long as they have via depressed interest rates and stupendous money-printing.
As always, the real action (that most people don’t even notice, let alone talk about) is the capacity to extract liquid fossil fuels and the price those liquid fossil fuels fetch on the market, particularly the international market.
Political convulsions, along with the hammering of economies by coronavirus, have seen oil prices depressed since 2014. But in recent weeks there has been a marked upward trend associated with the decline in the value of the US dollar. Brent is currently $54.52, up 1.7%.
Below $80 a barrel is not sufficient to sustain much of the oil extraction business. Yet above $100 a barrel is too high for consumers, and everything begins to ‘implode’ very quickly, as per the $147 price of 2008.
Governments will keep throwing money at the predicament, because throwing money away to prop up dysfunctional arrangements is the only thing governments know.
Without energy nothing happens. And without liquid fuels the current industrial civilisation collapses, in a matter of hours.
So, ‘we’ will keep extracting and burning liquid fuels, and keep buggering up the thermal balance of the Earth (and keep buggering-up a lot of other things) until we can’t.
A superb article is here:
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/11/06/the-narrative-problem-after-peak-oil/
Will more than 3 people bother to read it, despite energy being the key to everything?
(Pardon my cynicism -I been alerting people to this fundamental aspect for 20 years with little success…giving them the opportunity to learn and prepare the easy way. So they going to learn the hard way, very soon.)
‘Peak oil – including from fracking and tar sands – finally occurred in 2018. Hardly anyone noticed because – as happened in the USA in 1970 – everyone assumed that it would be a temporary blip. Oil extraction in 2019 was not substantially lower than 2018; but there was no month in 2019 when extraction was higher than it had been in November 2018…
As Gail Tverberg has warned many times, it is consumption rather than production which drives the post-peak oil economy. That is, although the oil industry needs higher prices to remain profitable, it is consumers’ collective lack of purchasing power which forces prices down. Temporary increased prices – such as those immediately after the 2008 crash – are unaffordable. As consumers have to pay more for essentials, they cut spending on discretionary items; driving the retail apocalypse and forcing manufacturers to cut production… thereby lowering demand for oil. Thus oil prices are forced down to a level consumers can afford:…
Yes, humanity will eventually revert to “green energy,” but not in the way techno-utopian fantasists imagine. Rather, as the energetic basis of the industrial economy collapses, those who survive will mainly be left with energy technologies like water wheels, windmills and sails to supplement human and animal labour power at an economic level not dissimilar, at best, to the early nineteenth century… that’s just what happens when you run out of gas!’
Thank you for the timely reminder. Funny you are right that we never hear about oil anymore on msm. No wonder the plan is herd us all into the cities, penned in with only bikes for transport
They need to allow tiny houses so that people can afford their own housing!
Tiny houses are not much different to caravans that are allowed – you should just need a septic tank and water and be allowed to put on a tiny house without the rigamarole from council as long as there is privacy from neighbours (trees or seclusion) and noise controls so they are not an eyesore or noise hazard.
Sick to death of consumerism? Find freedom in a tiny house
https://theconversation.com/sick-to-death-of-consumerism-find-freedom-in-a-tiny-house-35672?fbclid=IwAR2OGoZGczwWMAblare1Ea_EwusSq6USHE5VKNcJTFZu131EMNIElD8KzwQ
Annnnd its goodnight from me, – and its goodnight from Him.
And I will be voting Social Credit next election to circumvent the National/ Labour neo liberal hegemony and break the chain. Fuck ’em.
Fleetwood Mac – The Chain
https://youtu.be/kBYHwH1Vb-c?t=17
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