NZ PM tied in knots over foreign buyers

Monday 20 July 2015

I wrote last Tuesday how a political war had erupted after the Labour Party’s housing spokesperson, Phil Twyford, released a large Auckland real estate firm’s data showing that almost 40% of buyers in the three months to the end of April had Chinese names, despite Chinese-New Zealanders making up only 9% of Auckland’s population.

This massive over representation, Mr Twyford claimed, meant that there was large scale investment from Chinese nationals investing in Auckland real estate, which has helped drive the massive 26% year-on-year price growth across the metro area.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:

$24.99 / month

$249 / year

Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe

About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.