Spare a thought for our poor impoverished landlords
Spare a thought for poor landlords who are aghast at the thought that they should have to share capital gains on properties they have purchased with no intent of making a capital gain.
Social issues
housing
Housing affordability and urban form
Hugh Pavletich thinks that Auckland’s housing crisis is because of restrictions on urban sprawl and that loosening up would be a good thing. I disagree.
Political punditry in 2019
The media has recently reviewed its predictions from last year and made a few new ones. How did it go? And what is going to happen in the next 12 months?
Let it Be
Letting fees are a thing of the past. Labour’s Phil Twyford has outlawed the practice of charging tenants an upfront fee for a non existent service. It’s about fairness and it’s about time.
Twyford’s big announcement
The government has just announced the creation of the most massive and powerful housing and land development agency that we have ever seen.
Bridges Billion dollar bungle
Simon Bridges has claimed that Labour’s Kiwisaver fund is $18 billion short of the amount needed to meet the Government’s goals of constructing ten thousand Kiwibuild houses a year. The claim has as much credibility as National’s claim that Labour’s budget figures had an $11.5 billion hole in them.
What happens if housing prices really go down?
So what if Labour decides to go ahead with its capital gains tax? What happens to the equity of the remaining middle class? What happens to the equity of those who were brought in under KiwiBuild?
KiwiBuild doesn’t fly.
More than that, it needs to be torn down before it makes a serious bid at flight.
National’s Judith problem
Judith Collins has landed herself in trouble for publicising details of a young couple who just bought a Kiwibuild home.
National badly wants Kiwibuild to crash
National is complaining that Labour is not solving the National imposed housing crisis quickly enough.
Someone tell the business sector, Kiwis like this Government
A recent survey conducted by IPSOS shows New Zealanders are feeling more positive about the Labour-NZ First coalition government than they were the previous one.
Rental Rights Review
The Labour led Government has announced a review into tenancy laws. It’s about time we balanced the rental market, which has for too long let renters down.
Let them fall
We’ve seen a fair few construction companies go under or get close to it recently.
Redeveloping Public Housing
The Government is getting ready to battle the most rapacious economic force in this country, real estate capitalism, for the good of people.
The UN is shocked by NZ’s child poverty rates
Earlier this year the United Nations expressed shock and concern at New Zealand’s rates of child poverty, homelessness, incarceration and violence. What is this Government doing to address these issues?
Property price decline
What would happen if the house prices of Auckland, Queenstown, and other centres of very high debt went into substantial and long term decline?
Nats indignant that Twyford is not fixing their housing crisis quickly enough
Judith Collins has criticised Phi Twyford because after eight months as Minister he has not fixed a crisis that took nine years to create.
Collins keeps Housing Corp P debacle in news cycle
Judith Collins has managed to keep the Housing Corp methamphetamine story alive for another news cycle by attacking poor people who take drugs.
Dud advice
The methamphetamine debacle continues with questions raised about if the Auckland District Health Board provided confidential information to Housing New Zealand about its tenants. And Simon Bridges directly contradicts Bill English by claiming that the last Government had no idea the guidelines were not fit for purpose.
National’s strategy on the Housing Corp P fiasco
National is all over the place in its response to Peter Gluckman’s Housing Corp methamphetamine report with three different justifications being provided by three different senior MPs.
Housing Band Aids
What lies behind the homelessness crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand? Is it a housing crisis or are the homeless to blame? If the problem is a housing crisis, why is there an assumption that the homeless themselves need extra services to secure and maintain rental housing?
Why is Mark Richardson such a Nimby and …?
Being a nimby is the least of Mark Richardson’s problems. His disguised hate speech is harmful to his victims and anyone else in need of help who are left feeling the shame imposed upon them by such careless dialogue.
David Seymour blows the dog whistle, hard
David Seymour has hit a new low by drumming up public opposition to a small social housing development planned by Housiung Corporation in Epsom by claiming some of the potential tenants may have mental health problems.
Fudget for Austerity
Some proposals on why we just got the budget we did.
Everyone applauds Labour’s homelessness plan … except National
Labour’s announcement of $100 million spending on homelessness has attracted praise from everyone, except National.
Homeless families are living in cars … and tents
Remember how early on during his reign as National leader John Key talked about the underclass and how they were a blight on New Zealand society? Well over the past year WINZ has been giving grants to homeless families to live in tents.
We did not know it would be this bad
Marama Davidson’s question to Jacinda Ardern in Parliament yesterday allowed Jacinda to outline the enormous mess the last National Government has left the country in.
Mike Hosking reckons: Minimum wage increase will be terrible for everyone
Mike Hosking reckons that an increase in the minimum wage will increase housing unaffordability and cause job losses and business closures.
Labour ban letting fees
A good start from Labour on rent reforms, but will their bigger plans be enough?
Collins: No one cares about National’s abject failure over housing
Judith Collins thinks that no one cares that National oversaw the creation of a significant housing crisis.
Housing needs a builder not a crusher
Phil Twyford has the perfect response to National’s claim that Judith Collins’ appointment as Housing Spokesperson would cause him to lose sleep.
Special laws for rich people
Queenstown Lake District Council wants to protect the uber wealthy from Labour’s new overseas house buying ban.
Fletcher Chair resigns but directors retain huge fees despite staggering loss
Fletcher announces more huge losses but directors still laughing all the way to the bank
The Housing Crisis.
Can politics deliver?
The Froth Comes off The Beer
Auckland appears to be following the trend set by Melbourne and Sydney of a softening in expected prices for selling houses.
The failure of “right to buy” policies
Not only did National’s policy to sell off state houses fail, but now we’ve found out a similar Thatcher policy in the UK just handed many social houses to private landlords. Should we consider making it harder to sell off state houses in New Zealand?