New Zealand Labour government set to introduce law banning foreign homebuyers

[webfact]

New Zealand Labour government set to introduce law banning foreign homebuyers

 

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern waves to student dancers (not pictured) upon her arrival to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and related meetings in Clark, Pampanga, northern Philippines November 12, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

 

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's housing minister said on Wednesday the new government would introduce a law banning foreigners, including students and temporary workers, from buying existing homes into the country's Parliament the following day.

 

The new Labour government, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, campaigned in the recent New Zealand election to restrict foreign buyers and reduce demand while the country tackles what the party calls a "housing crisis".

 

Housing Minister Phil Twyford told reporters that overseas buyers were not currently a major part of New Zealand's housing market, which was seeing "temporary cooling" after soaring in recent years.

 

But he said the government was determined to ensure the regulations were in place if the market took off again and the rules would come into force in the first quarter of 2018.

 

"Our view is that house prices should be set by New Zealand buyers and sellers, not by being treated as an investment asset for overseas speculators," Twyford said in his office at Parliament.

 

The changes are among the first to highlight the more protectionist stance taken by the centre-left coalition government. That comes in stark contrast to the previous decade of centre-right National Party rule during which time the government touted the Pacific nation's open economy.

 

Permanent residents would still be able to buy residences so long as they had lived in New Zealand for more than a year, he said, while other resident visa holders would have to go to the country's investment office for approval.

 

Those on temporary visas, which encompassed the booming international student market, would not be allowed to buy housing.

 

Some government figures show the number of home sales including foreigners is only around 3 percent, though Labour has criticised that data and says it excludes many types of owners, including those who purchase property through trusts.

 

The ban would not apply to Australians, and the government was negotiating with Singapore, whose free trade agreement with New Zealand allows foreign ownership, on whether Singaporeans could also get an exemption, Twyford said.

 

The politically sensitive housing crunch has seen prices rise more than 50 percent nationally in the last decade. In the city of Auckland, prices have almost doubled in that period.

 

This year price growth has eased off as bank lending restrictions kicked in, giving a sigh of relief to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand which had been alarmed at the financial stability risk.

 

Data this month showed another upward burst in house prices, which economists say is partly down to people trying to get in ahead of the foreign buyer restrictions and Labour's plans to widen taxes on investors next year.

 

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-12-13

[RotMahKid]

More countries should do that.

[BEVUP]

10 minutes ago, RotMahKid said:

More countries should do that.

Like the one we're in (where they protect their peoples jobs )

& also they should ban the Kiwis from coming to Auss (leaving Ausies out of jobs ) to pay for those houses no one else can have & see how they go then 

[lemonjelly]

Shame the UK didn’t do this decades ago instead of flinging open its doors to the third world.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[bridge2bridge]

Great Stuff, i wish the Australian Government would follow suit.  China for one owns nearly half of the country.

[Kiwiken]

The problem is the legislation still allows Foreigners to build and profit from New subdivisions. And the problem is we do not have enough housing so they can profit take.

[Enoon]

3 hours ago, lemonjelly said:

Shame the UK didn’t do this decades ago instead of flinging open its doors to the third world.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

 

Haha, I get it, you mean the Russian mafia/oligarchs and Arab princes who have bought up Kensington and the Home Counties.

 

You couldn't possibly mean foreigners, non-citizens, with no right of abode (which is what this article is about), obviously with no money as the came from the 3rd world,  buying up the housing stock and exacerbating a housing shortage (which is what this article is about).

 

That would be contradictory and ludicrous.

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2017 by Enoon

[natway09]

The Australian Government did this years ago.

Wrong to allow Singaporeans to buy though,,,,, starts the Malaysia  Bhumi thing in reverse

[simple1]

2 hours ago, bridge2bridge said:

Great Stuff, i wish the Australian Government would follow suit.

China for one owns nearly half of the country.

Nonsense

 

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/charts-the-strength-of-foreign-investment-in-the-australian-housing-market-2017-4

 

https://cdn.tspace.gov.au/uploads/sites/79/2017/04/1516-FIRB-Annual-Report.pdf

Edited December 13, 2017 by simple1

[thaibeachlovers]

30 years too late and allowing residents of one year to buy makes a mockery. Should be like Thailand.

[rosst]

2 hours ago, bridge2bridge said:

Great Stuff, i wish the Australian Government would follow suit.

China for one owns nearly half of the country.

Agreed, any party using this in it's platform would romp it in. 

[car720]

2 hours ago, bridge2bridge said:

Great Stuff, i wish the Australian Government would follow suit.

China for one owns nearly half of the country.

Australia has been selling the farm since day one.

Not one government that I have seen has ever done anything but live off the sheeps back.

[Graemej100]

We're just following the Thias who are leaders in this sort of stuff.

[RickBradford]

5 hours ago, natway09 said:

The Australian Government did this years ago.

Wrong to allow Singaporeans to buy though,,,,, starts the Malaysia  Bhumi thing in reverse

In Sydney, Chinese Person A (an Australian citizen, no less) receives large sums of money from an overseas source, and uses it to buy another property which happens to be on behalf of Chinese Person B (not a citizen, but maybe thinking about it) and so on down the line. It's against the spirit of the law, but not against the letter of the law, and the NSW government has no clue what to do about it.

 

A friend reports that in a recent auction in Chatswood, or perhaps North Ryde, 90% of the potential buyers were of Chinese aspect, ratcheting the price up to $2.5 million or so, double the average price of 5 years ago.

[doacko]

The situation of foreign ownership in Canada is appalling! People are being evicted out of their houses, so developers can tear down the houses to erect huge condo buildings to satisfy the overseas speculators that have seen prices triple even before ground is broken. Meanwhile, the renters are at the mercy of other landlords who then jack up the rental cost, to take advantage of the diminished supply.

The Real Estate market seems to offer a safer, better return for offshore money than the bank, or even laundering it through casinos.

Too bad that governments--other than New Zealand's---only look at the foreign investment as a stroke to their policies. Too bad some governments can't see the real damage this is causing. Soon, only foreign nationals will be the only people able to afford to live in Vancouver.

[Kiwiken]

Foreign investment is simply that. Investment for profit. So they take out more than they put in. Much of the distortion in the New Zealand housing market was in fact caused by expat kiwis returning and British investors buying up existing stock in the early 2000's, then the Christchurch earthquake destroyed 18,000 houses and the bubble inflated and has never gone down. The only way to fix is for Our Government to build 100,000 state houses but non of them have the courage of Our forefathers

Edited December 13, 2017 by Kiwiken

[LazySlipper]

7 hours ago, doacko said:

Meanwhile, the renters are at the mercy of other landlords who then jack up the rental cost, to take advantage of the diminished supply.

 

Depends where in Canada. 

You cannot be evicted with impunity. Landlords who wish to evict tenants have to pay compensation and in many cases the relocation fee. The benefits of a civilized country.

[thaibeachlovers]

4 hours ago, Kiwiken said:

Foreign investment is simply that. Investment for profit. So they take out more than they put in. Much of the distortion in the New Zealand housing market was in fact caused by expat kiwis returning and British investors buying up existing stock in the early 2000's, then the Christchurch earthquake destroyed 18,000 houses and the bubble inflated and has never gone down. The only way to fix is for Our Government to build 100,000 state houses but non of them have the courage of Our forefathers

The only way to fix is for Our Government to build 100,000 state houses but non of them have the courage of Our forefathers

 

I'd make it 500,000 and destroy the speculators.

The shame of NZ politics is that none of them appear to have any guts, and the present system of voting allows people that were never voted for to take seats.

I despair for NZ in the future.

IMO the best answer is to become part of Australia, but I doubt there is much support for that.

[Kiwiken]

17 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The only way to fix is for Our Government to build 100,000 state houses but non of them have the courage of Our forefathers

 

I'd make it 500,000 and destroy the speculators.

The shame of NZ politics is that none of them appear to have any guts, and the present system of voting allows people that were never voted for to take seats.

I despair for NZ in the future.

IMO the best answer is to become part of Australia, but I doubt there is much support for that.

I agree with you 100% on the 500,000 but no Govt has the stomach for that. i am afraid the day of perhaps joining Australia died with the first anti kiwi legislation introduced in 2000. We are further apart than we have ever been and no sun on the horizon

[ballpoint]

18 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

IMO the best answer is to become part of Australia, but I doubt there is much support for that.

No, a lot of Australians wouldn't want to be ruled out of Wellington.

[thaibeachlovers]

On ‎12‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 10:41 AM, ballpoint said:

No, a lot of Australians wouldn't want to be ruled out of Wellington.

?????????????????

NZ would be one state, and only have as many representatives in the federal government as any other state.

I accept that it isn't going to happen, but that's a shame as NZ is just too small to survive given the stuff going on in it.

[greenchair]

Residents for 1 year, then they can buy and leave. 

What a joke. 

[Coconutman]

Yet many on here complain about Thailand for the same reason.

 

Imagin if America announced this.

[boomerangutang]

Too bad they didn't put that rule in place before Thailand's Purachai moved there in the early 2000's.

 

Purachai was bosom buddies with Thaksin.  The two of them decided to eradicate red light districts in Thailand.  Of course they couldn't make a dent in the biggest red-lights districts (Bkk, Phuket, Pattaya) because those were run by police/politicians/army top brass, .....so the two puritan-wannabes focused on smaller towns.   After putting thousands of sex-workers out of business, Thaksin ran off (skipped a judicial hearing) with billions of baht and 15 passports, and Purachai went to live in NZ.