Posts by Katharine Moody
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OnPoint: My last name sounds Chinese, in reply to David MacGregor,
Perhaps new migrants might also buy health and education tokens (10% of sum introduced – say) with the capital they bring to catch up with the huge investment prior New Zealanders have made in this country – to offset the risk that the notional ‘presence’ of their capital doesn’t find its way into the commons.
It's a thought-provoking proposal. There is little doubt that we have a problem in terms of being able to afford our needed infrastructure upgrades - and not just in health and education, but in transport, and reticulated services.
If as a country we want to be in the business of selling permanent residency - what better investment for our new residents than direct into public infrastructure as opposed to private housing?
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
Indeed. And not forgetting that we have no such thing as non-recourse mortgage loans here. Interest.co.nz have a housing debt clock running on this page:
This is how much housing debt we had when I posted this ...
NZ$ 199,706,544,876
And this link (scroll down past the chart) will take you to it in real time:
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Andre,
Of course there is an issue. There has always been an issue, depending on what currency was running particularly hot against the kiwi... but the bigger issue now (much, much bigger, that is) is the amount of QE/ZIRP going on elsewhere in the world and the tremendous profits of that inconceivable amount of "leverage-up" finding its way to us.
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Barfoot and Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson was quoted as disagreeing with Labour's analysis, but acknowledged there were many buyers from China.
"We know there's been a large portion of Asians buying property but there's no way to tell if they're one of three categories: NZ born, foreign-born NZ citizens or foreign-born foreign citizens. If you asked me about Asian non-residents, I'd probably say between 5 and 8 per cent," Thompson was quoted as saying.
Problem is - in real estate it is the top price paid for a similar property that sets the expectation with respect to asking prices. So even if the number of offshore buyers is as Barfoot's MD suggests - if they are able/prepared to pay more, they set the market price. We had this same thing happen once with a beachfront property we owned. A UK buyer came in and purchased a house (sight unseen) down the road at more than 50% above its market price at the time. Everyone's expectations rose with that sale - and the RVs rose similarly in the next valuation round.
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Regardless of what/who is causing the price bubble – the alarming fact is in the rapidly increasing mortgage indebtedness of local New Zealanders;
http://www.interest.co.nz/charts/real-estate/mortgage-approvals
http://www.interest.co.nz/charts/credit/housing-credit
And this is occurring at a time when a large percentage of the population is likely to be (or at least should be) de-leveraging (buying down or paying off debt) in preparation for retirement.
I just wish we had a foreign buyers register – then as a public we wouldn’t need to speculate with questionable data – and thus ethnicity wouldn’t be a targeted issue. Fact is the world is awash with ZIRP created debt. If all that foreign investment were in employment creating industry – fine. But in residential housing – it’s a recipe for absolute local disaster – as we are witnessing in Auckland.
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Wonder how National would have voted on this had Hone won his electorate last time around?
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Envirologue: Swamp Monsters – the…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
:-). The best campaigns block without flagrant violation of the law. One of my favourites in NZ was this one;
http://www.listofmicronations.com/lomwiki/index.php/Independent_State_of_Aramoana
They raised huge sums of money selling stamps and issuing passports. Had a 'traveling embassy' (a sign painted caravan) that toured the nation raising awareness, oppositional support and fighting funds.
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Envirologue: Swamp Monsters – the…, in reply to Rob Stowell,
But how to stop it?
Anarchist activism – it’s the only way when those supposed to uphold the law refuse to do so. There's even a new academic journal devoted to it;
http://mobilizationjournal.org/loi/maiq
And a book by Boraman in NZ, "Rabble Rousers and Merry Pranksters: A history of anarchism in Aotearoa/New Zealand from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s" detailing our previously successful anarchist campaigns :-).
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On the state of the Fourth Estate in the States;
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-17/today-financial-journalism-suffered-epic-failure