Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 178 posts

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#141

Post by ebikelaw »

munificent wrote: post #131
stale2002 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what's wrong with SOME cities being giant skyscraper filled grids? Personally I would love to live in that kind of city. And apparently this is also true for a lot of other people. The low density people have 99% of the world to live in. Why can't us high density people get the 1% that WE want? Let's just let everyone live how they want. There is more than space for both skyscrapers and suburbs.

> I mean, what's wrong with SOME cities being giant skyscraper filled grids? Nothing at all, and I get that some people dig that. > Why can't us high density people get the 1% that WE want? You can. What I disagree with is the moralizing tone that people take when others don't want their existing city turned into that. > There is more than space for both skyscrapers and suburbs. I agree, but this discussion usually t…

> people argue that the existing single-family homes should be torn down and replaced with greater density.

Literally nobody argues this. Pure strawman. What people argue is that property owners should be _permitted_ to build _slightly_ larger buildings on _their_ property. The law today for most land in most American cities says that property owners are forbidden from building anything but detached single-family dwellings. To remove this prohibition and to allow property owners to develop their own land, if they want that, is not the same as bulldozing the existing neighborhood.

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#142

Post by ebikelaw »

indemnity wrote: post #115
stale2002 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what's wrong with SOME cities being giant skyscraper filled grids? Personally I would love to live in that kind of city. And apparently this is also true for a lot of other people. The low density people have 99% of the world to live in. Why can't us high density people get the 1% that WE want? Let's just let everyone live how they want. There is more than space for both skyscrapers and suburbs.

Do you have kids yet? I lived in such cities from when I left home at 17 until 36, but the arrival of kids... well, I want them to have a yard to play in, in a chilled neighbourhood, close to the beach and hikes, etc. As well as more room so they can all have their own bedroom, we can have a family area, etc. When they leave the house, I’d probably move back to the city to an apartment. In essence, I’m agreeing with…

If you took half a dozen normal-sized detached American houses and their yards, put all the houses right next to each other and all the land in a contiguous polygon, you'd have a way better place for all the children to play, just as much interior space, and a dramatically better place to be. Detached single-family homes fragment the open space and alienate people, which are not good things for growing children.

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#143

Post by bradknowles »

kentosi wrote: post #69
weberc2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive my ignorance, but if you're investing in property, don't you have "skin in the game"? Presumably it's in your interest that the community thrives, because that will help drive up property values (increasing your ROI)? This is just my naive intuition, so please correct me. EDIT: Downvoters, what gives? Just asking a question...

The problem is when rich investors buy properties to hold, but don't actually rent them out to people. This in turn reduces the number of apartments available to the people that need them, and just drives prices artificially upwards.

And the property tax doesn't cover the costs to the society when the property owner doesn't participate in the society.

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#144

Post by bradknowles »

TheBeardKing wrote: post #123
Tiktaalik wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with absenteeism is that while taxes are still being paid to maintain city services, the city doesn't function correctly, because there's weak street life. Here's an article about the struggles of retailers in Vancouver's Coal Harbour neighbourhood, which has estimates of around 20-25% empty housing. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/at-vancouvers-co...

If the vacancies drive away business, which weakens street life, then would not the low street life drive down real estate prices?

Nope.

Just ask the people in London who live among all the empty properties that have been bought by various Russian oligarchs or other people who want to exfiltrate their wealth from the countries where they "acquired" it.

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#145

Post by wepple »

isostatic wrote: post #126
wepple wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the local sells to a foreign buyer and downsizes. That’s great for them. But their kids are now priced out of the market, and will never own a home but rent from someone who lives 15h flight away.

Sure. Life sucks doesn't it Fortunately there are many places that someone in NZ can buy a house. https://www.realestate.co.nz/3379275 For example is proavly affordable on minimum wage of $32k, certainly with two incomes.

I’m not sure the point you’re trying to make here.

It’s a town of 1700 people, described by Wikipedia as a “gang town”. If your point is that it’s possible to buy a house in NZ, sure. But quality of life is totally a thing, no?

And even then, your example requires a $40k deposit while earning $32k, a salary which doesn’t appear to have a whole lot left over and the end of the week.

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#146

Post by davidw »

munificent wrote: post #49
ebikelaw wrote: post #24

Western cities have only themselves to blame for turning housing into an appreciating asset. Housing is not supposed to appreciate and if it does not then nobody would speculate in it. In cities where they just build housing, like Vienna (typical rent ~1000 Euros/mo), they don’t have a need of these kinds of laws.

I don't think it's fair to blame cities for what is a nationwide problem. The entire economy is shifting from farming and production to a service economy. The former provided incentives for people to be widely distributed across a number of small cities and town. The latter does not, so there is a mass migration to cities. It's happening faster than the infrastructure, zoning, and physical layout of the cities can ad…

> I don't think it's fair to blame cities for what is a nationwide problem

In the US, zoning and land use regulations are mostly enacted at a city level, so they're pretty much to blame. Of course, they could be preempted at a state or even national level if the political will were there, but the current mess can be laid at the feet of our cities' regulations.

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#147

Post by lostlogin »

isostatic wrote: post #128
lostlogin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren’t any cheap locations. Fractionally less expensive, but still many multiples of a yearly wage.

You want somewhere that's affordable for 1x yearly wage? Care to point to some time in history that was possible?

Having New Zealand cities with average prices at 10x yearly average household income and a NZ average at over 6x is a radical departure from NZ’s historically narrow rich/poor divide.

https://www.interest.co.nz/property/house-price-income-multi...

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentis...

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#148

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

kovrik wrote: post #120
Tiktaalik wrote: post #3

Seems reasonable to me. Housing should be for housing people, not a speculative financial investment. It's reasonable for cities to ask that people show that they have some skin in the game, that they're living, working, paying taxes and contributing to and enhancing the community.

My opinion may be controversial, but I never understood this logic... I live in New Zealand at the moment. I am not Kiwi though, my wife and I moved from Russia. And I disagree. First, stats show that foreign buyers own ~3% of homes. Everything else is kiwi-owned. Second, there is another thing going on here -- KiwiBuild. Basically, government funds and builds 'affordable houses'. Prices (in NZD) are $500-650k, but n…

> Let's increase salaries to poor workers, let's give them houses, let's increase maternity leave etc.

New Zealand is a very wealth country by most metrics. It can definitely afford these things.

When I say "it" I mean: the people of New Zealand can afford to redistribute some of their wealth so the country can avoid the worst types of poverty, and probably a whole lot more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#149

Post by kovrik »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #148
kovrik wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion may be controversial, but I never understood this logic... I live in New Zealand at the moment. I am not Kiwi though, my wife and I moved from Russia. And I disagree. First, stats show that foreign buyers own ~3% of homes. Everything else is kiwi-owned. Second, there is another thing going on here -- KiwiBuild. Basically, government funds and builds 'affordable houses'. Prices (in NZD) are $500-650k, but n…

> Let's increase salaries to poor workers, let's give them houses, let's increase maternity leave etc. New Zealand is a very wealth country by most metrics. It can definitely afford these things. When I say "it" I mean: the people of New Zealand can afford to redistribute some of their wealth so the country can avoid the worst types of poverty, and probably a whole lot more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coun…

The thing I don't get though is: why build houses? Why not apartment complex? That'll be much cheaper and much more effective.

Re: New Zealand Passes Law to Crack Down on Foreign Home Buyers

#150

Post by stale2002 »

munificent wrote: post #131
stale2002 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what's wrong with SOME cities being giant skyscraper filled grids? Personally I would love to live in that kind of city. And apparently this is also true for a lot of other people. The low density people have 99% of the world to live in. Why can't us high density people get the 1% that WE want? Let's just let everyone live how they want. There is more than space for both skyscrapers and suburbs.

> I mean, what's wrong with SOME cities being giant skyscraper filled grids? Nothing at all, and I get that some people dig that. > Why can't us high density people get the 1% that WE want? You can. What I disagree with is the moralizing tone that people take when others don't want their existing city turned into that. > There is more than space for both skyscrapers and suburbs. I agree, but this discussion usually t…

You can keep your single family home.

What I want is for every major city to have a singular 1 square mile area, with zero building height limits, so that people who want to build tall building on their own property, are allowed to do so.

There is more than enough room in Seattle that is already allocated to single family homes. Now let's pick an area, and get rid of all zoning limits in that singular area.

Post reply on HN