By Leith van Onselen In the lead-up to last year’s September general election, New Zealand Labour Party launched a plan to reduce immigration by around a third in a bid to relieve chronic housing and infrastructure pressures (especially around Auckland): Last weekend, the Labour-led Government announced that it would triple the amount of time that
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has commenced collecting data on non-resident purchases of New Zealand homes, and the results are interesting: In the March 2018 quarter, just over 3 percent of home transfers were to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship or resident visas, Stats NZ said today… Nearly 33,000 homes were
By Leith van Onselen Back in 2007, then National opposition leader, John Key, lamented the woeful housing affordability in New Zealand (Auckland in particular), and promised to undertake a wide range of supply-side reforms if elected into government. John Key was elected as Prime Minister in November 2008 and the National Government ruled until September
By Leith van Onselen In the lead-up to last year’s September general election, I praised New Zealand Labour’s plan to reduce immigration by around a third, because it would help to relieve chronic housing and infrastructure pressures (especially around Auckland): Back in March, we experienced the first hint of backsliding from Labour, with Immigration Minister, Ian
By Leith van Onselen The new governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), Adrian Orr, gave a bizarre interview on Newshub Nation over the weekend, whereby he simultaneously fretted over New Zealand’s excessive household debt while at the same time argued against loan-to-value ratio (LVR) limits for low income ‘Kiwi build’ borrowers. First, below
By Leith van Onselen The RBNZ’s latest mortgage data shows that household and mortgage credit growth has begun to rise again after cooling recently in response to loan-to-value ratio restrictions targeting investors. After bottoming in February at 5.7%, annual New Zealand household credit growth rose to 5.8% in April: Most of New Zealand’s household debt
By Leith van Onselen New Zealand’s chronic housing shortage continues to worsen, especially in Auckland, despite dwelling consents rising and immigration falling. There were 11,629 dwelling consents issued across Auckland in the year to April (up 14%), and 32,015 consents issued across New Zealand over the year (up 5.4%): Despite the pick-up, none of this
By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s (RBNZ) officially introduced loan-to-value ratio (LVR) restrictions targeting investors on 1 October 2016, although banks began informally applying the rules since they were first announced in mid-July 2016. The latest mortgage data shows that household and mortgage credit growth has cooled significantly in New Zealand
By Leith van Onselen You know Auckland’s housing market has hit peak stupid when despite a near record high average dwelling price of $1.05 million: And rampaging population growth: We are being told that Auckland’s dwelling values must continue to rise otherwise developers will go bust: House prices and those of commercial property projects will
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand released its permanent & long-term migration figures for April 2018, which revealed that immigration into New Zealand has continued to drift back from record high levels, with 67,038 annual net permanent and long-term arrivals landing in New Zealand in the year to April, down from a peak of
By Leith van Onselen In the lead-up to last year’s September general election, I praised New Zealand Labour’s housing platform because it promised to address both supply and demand distortions via negative gearing reform, banning foreign buyers of existing homes, tighter capital gains taxes, removal of urban growth boundaries, plus bond financing for infrastructure. I
By Leith van Onselen The REINZ has released its house price data for April, which revealed a 0.7% seasonally adjusted monthly rise in the national median house price, with prices also up 2.3% year-on-year, which follows March’s 2.2% decline in values: Outside of Auckland, seasonally adjusted house prices also rose by 0.7% in April, with
By Leith van Onselen In the lead-up to last year’s September general election, I praised New Zealand Labour’s housing platform because it promised to address both supply and demand distortions via negative gearing reform, banning foreign buyers of existing homes, tighter capital gains taxes, removal of urban growth boundaries, plus bond financing for infrastructure. I
By Leith van Onselen The revelations of misconduct arising from the Australian Banking Royal Commission has led to calls for a similar Royal Commission into New Zealand’s banking system from First Union – the union for New Zealand finance workers: Stephen Parry, National Finance Sector Organiser, says the investigation into Australian banks has revealed troubling
By Leith van Onselen In August last year, Bernard Doyle, a strategist at JBWere, penned a ripping report on the New Zealand economy, arguing that rabid population growth was masking underlying weak productivity and poor per capita GDP growth: New Zealand has been in a productivity recession since 2012. Not that you’d notice from headline GDP
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has released its labour force data for the March quarter, with the unemployment rate falling 0.1% to a 9-year low of 4.4%. Below are the key points from the release: Unemployment rate fell to 4.4%. Underutilisation rate fell to 11.9%. Employment rate was unchanged at 67.7%. Filled jobs
By Leith van Onselen The RBNZ’s latest mortgage data shows that household and mortgage credit growth has cooled significantly in New Zealand following loan-to-value ratio restrictions targeting investors. As shown in the next chart, New Zealand household borrowing has retraced sharply, recording annual growth of 5.7% in March: Most of New Zealand’s household debt is
By Leith van Onselen New Zealand’s chronic housing shortage continues to worsen, especially in Auckland, despite dwelling consents continuing to rise, according to Statistics New Zealand. There were 11,192 dwelling consents issued across Auckland in the year to March (up 9.7%), and 31,392 consents issued across New Zealand over the year (up 2.5%): Despite the
By Leith van Onselen Earlier this month, the New Zealand Government released an Issues Paper proposing to ‘ring-fencing’ investors’ losses on residential property so they cannot be offset against unrelated wage/salary income, in a bid to level the playing field between property investors and first home buyers. Today, the Property Institute has hit back, warning
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand released its permanent & long-term migration figures for March 2018, which revealed that immigration into New Zealand has continued to drift back from record high levels, with 67,984 annual net permanent and long-term arrivals landing in New Zealand in the year to March, down from a peak of
By Leith van Onselen The REINZ has released its house price data for March, which revealed a 2.2% seasonally adjusted monthly decline in the national median house price, although prices were up 1.9% year-on-year: Outside of Auckland, seasonally adjusted house prices rose by 0.1% in March, with prices up 5.9% year-on-year. Looking at the major
By Leith van Onselen Last week, New Zealand’s parliament passed legislation to extend the “bright line test” out to five years, thus ensuring that if a speculator sells a rental property within five years they will pay income tax on the capital gain. From Interest.co.nz: The bright line test – which requires tax to be
By Leith van Onselen Auckland’s chronic housing shortage continues to worsen, despite dwelling consents continuing to rise, according to Statistics New Zealand. There were 11,052 dwelling consents issued across Auckland in the year to February (up 10%), and 31,245 consents issued across New Zealand over the year (up 3.6%): Despite the pick-up, none of this
By Leith van Onselen The New Zealand Labour-led Government’s review of the Reserve Bank Act has broadened the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s (RBNZ) mandate on setting the official cash rate (OCR) to target the “maximum sustainable level of employment” as well as price stability (inflation). It has also established a seven-member committee to set
By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has today left the official cash rate (OCR) unchanged at 1.75% and noted that economic growth is expected to strengthen and the labour market tighten, despite the housing market being restrained. It also indicates that rates will remain on hold for the foreseeable future
By Leith van Onselen In August last year, Bernard Doyle, a strategist at JBWere, penned a ripping report on the New Zealand economy, arguing that rabid population growth was masking underlying weak productivity and poor per capita GDP growth: New Zealand has been in a productivity recession since 2012. Not that you’d notice from headline GDP
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand released its permanent & long-term migration figures for February 2018, which revealed that immigration into New Zealand has continued to drift back from record high levels, with 68,943 annual net permanent and long-term arrivals landing in New Zealand in the year to February, down from a peak of
By Leith van Onselen With New Zealand’s Labour-led coalition Government nearly six months old, Roy Morgan has released new polling showing that poverty and housing are now the primary concerns of New Zealand voters: Quantified thematic analysis of the verbatim responses of a nationally representative sample of 999 New Zealanders found the economy and things
By Leith van Onselen In June last year, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) launched consultation to have debt-to-income (DTI) limits added to its macro-prudential toolkit. In the consultation paper, the RBNZ proposed a DTI limit of 5.0 times incomes and noted that DTI limits are used in other markets around the world, including the
By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has released national accounts figures for the December quarter of 2017, with Gross domestic product (GDP) rising by 0.6% over the quarter to be up 2.9% year-on-year. GDP per capita rose by 0.1% in the September quarter and by a soggy 0.7% year-on-year – the lowest per capita
