A legal challenge from a tiny group of pensioners is protesting a 100 apartment development on Dominion Rd that the council’s own development arm is trying to build. Sam Grover explains why this is not as cute as it might seem. Last year, Auckland Council declined planning permission for a proposed development on Dominion Road. … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Figures of foreign buyers shows a big decrease, principals unimpressed by government teacher recruitment fund, and CRL funding issues debated at Council. The statistics on foreign house buyers since the ban came into effect have shown a dramatic decline in sales to those overseas. It has pretty … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Door opened to debate on GE Free policy, dollar figure put on the health cost of poor housing, and self-ID bill deferred by minister Tracey Martin. It has been one of the cornerstone policies of New Zealand environmentalism for the past two decades. New Zealand’s GE Free … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Social housing list balloons amid heavy demand, bizarre development in NZ-China relations takes in former PM, and another species of foreign fruit fly found. The social housing waiting list has cracked 10,000, and is steadily rising all the time. Newshub reports that is an increase of 73% on … Read more
Everything from competition around supplying materials to how many lights you have in a room can determine the cost of building a house, says Box co-founder Dan Heyworth. You’re not imagining things – the cost of designing and building really is going crazy. In February 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute studied the effect of implementing construction … Read more
Property owners learn their fate on Thursday with the Tax Working Group‘s big reveal on capital capital gains tax. But whatever happens, it won’t be the housing panacea Generation Rent is hoping for, warns TOP’s Geoff Simmons. Here’s a message for young people who don’t yet own a home. In the coming months you will … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Wild rental inflation hits Wellington, an end to tenure review system has been announced, and confirmation comes of Chinese squeeze on tourism. Wellington is experiencing a wild spell of rent inflation at the moment, reports One News. Average rents in the city are now $45 a week more … Read more
As government and business lag behind, the fledgling community-driven housing sector is pursuing alternatives to bypass an unjust system, writes Thomas Nash Is there any hope for the future of housing in New Zealand? Our tax law encourages wealthy landowners to enrich themselves through untaxed revenue (also known as capital gains). The government faces scrutiny … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Fire rages in tinder-dry Tasman region, contention over call for compulsory colonial history teaching, and another big jump for dairy prices. Hundreds of people haven’t been able to return to their homes overnight, as fires rage in the Tasman District. A Civil Defence emergency was declared yesterday … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Dramatic climbdown on a key Kiwibuild target, future of New Zealand’s energy supply in focus, and hundreds of teacher vacancies remain. The government’s flagship Kiwibuild policy is set to fall seriously short of the first real target it has had to meet. Housing minister Phil Twyford has … Read more
A property developer and a restaurateur have spent $10m purchasing a Queenstown mountain they plan to turn into a commercially viable eco-haven. Want to buy an affordable house with a native forest outlook in the tourist mecca of Queenstown, and do good for the planet at the same time? Treespace has the solution for you. … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: New study lays bare housing unaffordability, a return to the news of a Roast Buster, and inequality continues to widen. Housing unaffordability in New Zealand is among the worst in the developed world, reports Stuff. That’s not necessarily a measure of prices alone, rather it’s a measure … Read more
Howls of indignation over state housing evictions based on spurious meth testing have masked the reality of New Zealand’s two-speed P standard. Veronica Crichton admitted that she and her friends had been smoking meth in their Gate Pa, Tauranga home. She even got her landlord to help her evict one P-affected flatmate. She and another … Read more
Former ski patroller Julie Scott has taken on a challenge of a very different kind: finding low-cost homes for families in New Zealand’s most expensive property market. Not all heroes wear capes. Sometimes they walk among us and perform their magic without needing to transform into someone different. It’s the seemingly ordinary-looking jobs that can … Read more
Set to deliver 100,000 homes in the next 10 years, Kiwibuild is the government’s ambitious $2 billion plan targeting first-home buyers. But how is it changing Auckland’s wider landscape? Read more: Eye in the sky: a visual guide to Auckland’s housing boom This week, more than 85 potential first-home buyers will be holding their breath to … Read more
Politicians have been ignoring pleas to control the wild west property management industry for over a decade, including the latest lobbying effort. The housing minister is unmoved by calls from a coalition of 26 organisations to regulate rental property managers. Social change agency Anglican Advocacy is leading a lobby to rein in the uncontrolled property … Read more
The Tax Working Group’s first report cautiously backs a capital gains tax, but has been stymied from the start in addressing a massive and inequitable loophole, writes Danyl Mclauchlan The government’s Tax Working Group, led by former deputy prime minister and finance minister Michael Cullen, released its interim report today. What does it say? Depends … Read more
Financial adviser Mike Warrington is warning his clients that investment properties are no longer the great little earners they once were. What does this mean for renters? Rental property investment is progressively being defined by our regulators as a commercial activity and as a result, will be impacted more heavily by future costs. In due … Read more
Auckland Council has nitpicked its way into rejecting two high-density apartment developments on public transport routes near the CBD. Hayden Donnell asks whether council’s consents department really believes in the vision of the Unitary Plan. The Unitary Plan was supposed to fix things. When it passed in 2016, huge swathes of Auckland were rezoned for … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: AirBnb rates hike ire sums up Auckland housing, health minister accused of cronyism, and calls to change Hamilton’s name. To start the week, we’re going to put the spotlight on an issue that is a microcosm for a lot of Auckland’s housing issues. Auckland homeowners who rent … Read more
Blocked drains, borked stormwater and an ankle-deep swamp under the house, yet the family renting the property in south Auckland feel powerless. The housing minister says it’s an ‘absolute disgrace’ and underscores the need for reform of tenancy rules. Zac Fleming reports for RNZ’s Checkpoint programme. The Housing Minister has described a Papakura “swamp house” … Read more
The launch of a new aerial imaging company in New Zealand gives a bird’s eye glimpse of Auckland’s rapidly changing landscape, allowing us to compare some of the city’s major infrastructure projects in places like Hobsonville, Mount Roskill, Papakura, Flatbush and Drury before and after construction. As a wise man once said, it’s about time … Read more
Ethan Donnell, director of Sick Homes, the latest in the Frame documentary series produced for the Spinoff by Wrestler and funded by NZ on Air, describes the people he met, and the reality of the places they live Once a week, Brett Johnson takes apart the small machine that pumps air through a mask and … Read more
Many of today’s concerns around home ownership and urban planning were found in centuries past, writes Jeremy Moyle Current anxieties about city planning and the possibility of home ownership can seem like particularly modern issues, but their origins are old – really old – and the concerns of 19th and early-20th century New Zealand sound … Read more
In the middle of a building boom, construction companies keep going out of business. Leonie Freeman explains why it’s happening and what we can do about it. It’s hard for many of us to square: while we seem to be on the brink of a house building boom, construction companies are falling over. It’s like … Read more
Imagine all the wealth in NZ as a ten-storey apartment building. Imagine half of NZ crammed in a tiny corner of the bottom floor. Read the Inequality Tower 2015 on the Wireless here. Fill your boots with Side Eyes here. The Bulletin is The Spinoff’s acclaimed, free daily curated digest of all the most … Read more
A disability advocate is urging the government to make accessibility a central part of the Kiwibuild programme. Alex Braae reports. The government’s flagship Kiwibuild policy has always intended to lead the way on housing, in the creation of good quality, affordable homes that first home buyers can spend years or even decades in. But advocates … Read more
Auckland has long been NZ’s economic engine, but these days the rest of the country’s doing pretty well too – and maybe even better, says Kiwibank’s chief economist Jarrod Kerr. In Auckland, things are starting to get a little chilly, not just in terms of the weather, but economically too – migration is cooling and … Read more
Are people who earn decent salaries too privileged to be thrown a bone by the government? Jenée Tibshraeny thinks not. This story first appeared on interest.co.nz. I would like to thank Housing Minister Phil Twyford for validating my generation’s “Ponsonby problems” as real ones. By setting the income caps for KiwiBuild eligibility at $120,000 for a … Read more