Posts by Lucy Telfar Barnard
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Have to be careful in the apartment market in Wellington though. Friends bought for retirement living, only to find that post Christchurch earthquake the insurance costs are so high they can't afford to live in it any more. Plus you have to look out for whether the council's assessed the building as needing seismic upgrade.
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I remember, probably 25 years ago, being given two pieces of advice for real estate investment. The second* of these was: if you want to know which area is going to appreciate next, look at where the artists, students, and new immigrants live. They've moved there because it represents value for money, the value being measured as proximity to transport, and "vibe". Property values will rise there until the value for money matches those of other places, and the students, artists and immigrants will look elsewhere.
Based on that, the ageing and gentrification in Pt Chev was inevitable, because you moved there.
(*The first was that overall worldwide, the highest priced properties were places on hills with views, and places near the sea/water. That's less relevant to this thread, and the hills things feels a bit of a joke in Wellington, where pretty much everywhere's on a hill with a view, and being that way brings wind and steps that daunt ageing parents).
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I'm going to try to wade in to answer your question, Mark, though my Labour Party membership has expired and I had no part in devising the CGT policy.
The reason your person on a low income would pay CGT on a $10K gain in value from selling a house is because it is income. If that same person were able to work and earned $10K, they'd pay $1895 in tax, not $1500. It's not their fault they can't work, since they're an invalid, but that doesn't mean additional income should be taxation exempt.
The tricky part with inherited properties is that there's no inheritance tax, so if the parent had sold the house just before they died, they wouldn't have paid CGT on it, since it was the family home, and the heir would get the full amount. But the question of how long a selling period there should be has nothing to do with the wealth of the person inheriting, it's about how long you can reasonably give people so they have adequate time to sell, but no incentive to hold on to the property longer in hope of making and keeping more capital gain.
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Can I have a hate-fest on the ABCs and think it might be best if David let go of the idea of being Leader?
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I was a bit surprised the Unions voted for Cunliffe - not because I didn't think they should, but just because I didn't think he'd be their sort of leader. I wonder now whether their votes for Cunliffe last round were trying to send the message to Labour that they wanted Goff/King et al gone. At that point, that group had tucked themselves in behind Robertson, so the best way of sending that message was voting Cunliffe?
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My sense of David Cunliffe has been that he's entirely genuine, but comes across as not on TV (and therefore, the exact opposite of Key).
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I'm not sure the Greens do have better discipline. I think they're just better at getting along with each other for the common good, and, being a smaller party, have a greater commonality of views, whereas Labour's bigger, more disparate, and attracts candidates for whom their political ambitions are at least as important as their political goals.
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This is only marginally on topic, but:
On Saturday I asked my lovely dairy man if he'd been able to vote. He wasn't sure he was going to get to, because he didn't close till 7pm. I went over about 4pm to say I'd mind the shop for him if he wanted to nip down the road to the school, but he said his wife had been able to duck out of work for a bit and was going to come and hold the fort for him.
On Sunday I asked him if that had worked out, and he said yes, but that his wife hadn't been able to vote. On her way back to work she'd gone to a polling booth down in Lyall Bay, and although all the signs were up, the doors were locked. She'd knocked, but noone answered.
Does anyone know what the rules are about polling booths staying open till 7pm? -
You speak the truth, and the truth is awful.
Love, strength and hope.
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For those following, I have updated my chart to include the special votes (which I had thought were included in the "total votes counted", but clearly not). I will revise again once they've been counted.
