New Zealand Economy

By Leith van Onselen After the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) prematurely decided to ease its successful mortgage LVR restrictions yesterday, New Zealand’s new finance minister, Grant Robertson, has claimed that he wants to simultaneously improve housing affordability while ensuring that home values continue to rise by 2%-3% a year.

By Leith van Onselen The RBNZ has released several pieces of data suggesting that the RBNZ’s recent loan-to-value ratio restrictions have been successful in cooling mortgage demand amid record population growth.

By Leith van Onselen Apparently Auckland’s housing market is no longer in “crisis”, according to the National opposition’s housing spokesman, Michael Woodhouse: National’s housing spokesman Michael Woodhouse says flatlining property prices in Auckland prove there is no housing crisis.

By Leith van Onselen The REINZ has released its house price data for October, which revealed a 1.2% seasonally adjusted monthly rise in the national median house price, with prices up 3.3% year-on-year: Outside Auckland, seasonally adjusted house prices rose by 0.9% in October, with prices up 8.5% year-on-year.

By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has released its latest Monetary Policy Statement, whereby it has left the cash rate unchanged at 1.75% and noted that the housing market has moderated.

By Leith van Onselen A few weeks back, Statistics New Zealand released its Household Living Costs Price Indexes, which revealed that low-income households’ costs are growing at a much faster rate than high-income households, due in part to rising housing rents.

By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has this morning released its labour force data for the September quarter, with the unemployment rate falling to 4.6% from 4.8%.

By Leith van Onselen New Zealand’s newly appointed Labour-led coalition Government has moved to implement the first tranche of its demand-side housing reforms, undertaking to amend the Overseas Investment Act in a manner that won’t impact the nation’s in-force free trade agreements (FTAs).

By Leith van Onselen Auckland’s chronic housing shortage continues to worsen, according to new data released this morning by Statistics New Zealand, which shows that dwelling consents continue to fall well short of immigration-fueled population growth.

By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has today released its Household Living Costs Price Indexes, which reveals that low-income households’ costs are growing at a much faster rate than high-income households: Living costs for low-spending households increased 2.6 percent in the year to September 2017, Stats NZ said today.

Cross-posted from Croaking Cassandra. It was confirmed yesterday that the new government’s immigration policy will be the policy the Labour Party campaigned on (albeit very quietly).

How easy was that?