The comments seem to indicate that the readers didn't percieve it as satire
*headdesk*

I worked overseas for 20 years and saved a lot for my retirement (and paid my taxes rigorously in both countries), when I bring that money back to NZ I don't particularly…

It might be simpler to require that beneficial owners be identified. I suspect that alone would collapse many of the problems.

It would probably involve punitive taxation of money moving to or from vehicles…

2. Ban company ownership of residential property (so no more shell companies or LAQCs or any other entity other than a human or humans owning a property)

I agree with a lot of your points but despite obvious abuses of the LTC (the new name for LAQC) regime does have…

You could get a quick sense of it by inventing a measure like median house price to electronic card spending (the later is on Infoshare on StatsNZ).

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/upshot/listen-carefully-for-signs-of-the-next-global-recession.html?_r=1

I would say that someone in the govt understands very well the impacts that house prices have on consumer spending. That is not to say that Auckland house prices are driving the…

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-29/knight-game-of-homes/7369312

While it is true (I assume) that Auckland needs to build 75000 extra homes to have the same kind of people per household as the rest…

I almost totally agree. I'd just say that earnings targeted should not be…

No but the family home, an investment property or 2 and the bach on waiheke might.

You've got…

Internal passports – if history's any guide, that's a slippery slope to starvation and cannibalism in the godforsaken hinterland:
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazino_affair|"Many of the deportees were people in Moscow and Leningrad who had been unable to obtain an…

It is patently a supply issue and a demand…

The iceberg is 20 years away but it's going to be ugly.

Returns of 3% instead of historic 7-8% (NZ Superfund underfunded)
+ a generation reaching retirement with a mortgage, or worse, still renting
+ being told to work longer while opportunities for…

That's fascinating. I'm not so bothered…

Also, most NZers are unaware that in the event of a financial collapse, deposit holders are the first to go under our law (there are no deposit guarantees). Savers foot the bill before shareholder. Wholesale funding has primed this bubble. Nobody in the mainstream media has addressed this.

Count me…

An alternative would look something like:
– nationalise and consolidate the failed banks
– raise emergency public funds with a one-shot tax on property worth over say $1mln
– offer home occupiers in negative equity…

Traditionally, a big difference between offices and residential was the former having a much higher stud to make room for services in the floor/ceiling, but with WiFi, that becomes less important.

This is a world wide problem. Most western world major cities are in the same boat.

There are multiple causes and solutions, and many mentioned here. My favourite solution is a decent social housing program with secure long term tenancy. And regional development (I am *never* going back to…

I'd start to worry that they plan on cashing in early when they start gifting you Mt Everest expedition and base jumping holidays.

City/regional planners, in considering zoning, or applications to construct hotels/backpackers/supermarkets/sports arenas, consider the allocation of land to different purposes. Those purposes include farming, industrial and commercial…

The rules around renting out housing seem to be based on an historic NZ model where renting was for students and young people in the few years between leaving school and…

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-tourism-airbnb-idUSKCN0QV1LR20150826

I noticed the problem too, when in an Air BnB in Venice (right by the Biennale sites in 'old Venice') – tricky rubbish collection schedules in a town with no trucks was…

(and at the margin, there is transfer between hotel and apartment block use – the Formule 1 on Wyndham St used…

Our kids have been tolds not to depend on it in their live's plans, we're planning on spending it all, anything that's…

according to Nick Smith...

http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201798817

So be of good cheer folks...we're not fucked after all....

I'm just wondering how many Air BnBs (and similar) are listed in Auckland these days – each one of those (or many at least) takes a family footprint out of the housing equation – apparently…

I did see a nice new BMW the other day with the numberplate ‘GFC…’
how they must laugh, those Big-money Johnnies…

That seems like the way to go. Auckland prices could fall 50% and still be considered "unaffordable". There hasn't been a fall like that since…

Either we blame the people who did the thing, or blame the system (or part of the system) they operate in. If you don't want to blame the people, the system needs fixing.

To my mind, this is just another example of how deregulation and…

The only option is to stop prices rising and then let 10-20 years of inflation and wage growth to…

It seems the housing bubble is an ongoing game of chicken. Whoever's in…

This might be me in, say, seven years' time. But I'm happy to argue against my own interest in this case.

Yes. The thing is that shares are generally easily liquidated the same day (at least the ones you can buy on margin). And when I checked last, you usually couldn't go buy than 60% of a margin.

So yes, you definitely can…

x 2 sets of baby boomer parents is some cases also

No but the family home, an investment property or 2 and the bach on waiheke might.

And they're certainly not going to vote for anything that will lower their…

However the capital cost of housing isn’t counted in the inflation statistic, so providing house price inflation doesn’t “leak” into general inflation, they currently don’t care from an inflationary, as opposed to banking stability, point of view).

(House…

They're really not. A family home divided 2.4 ways isn't going to save people close to retirement age who were never able to buy on their own while working.

You can still do that – if you have a flex mortgage, then the bank don't know what you're up to with the borrowed capital.

But it doesn't give you any extra…

It is not actually the Reserve Banks job- it looks after banking stability (trying to ensure the banks won't crash in the event…

Actual governance, not selfish (ab)use of power

Hence as so many have already pointed out multiple solutions are needed.

But as Ben has rightly noted voting for policies that…

Yes this – what's really scary is that there are people buying into this bubble who don't have any experience of paying 10% interest rates .... and don't have a plan for what they'll do when they come back

Certainly nowadays banks would be…

Not quite true – funnily enough banks were more than happy to lend people vast sums of money to buy shares in the mid-80's

Now they are happy lending easy…

Which of course is the problem because any action that genuinely seeks to fix the housing problem WILL result in a drop in current house prices.

But I own my house and…

I don't think so, have you ever tried borrowing money from the bank to buy shares like you can property?

This property bubble won't burst until interest…

This.

And the later myriad of finance company collapses where hundreds of thousands of kiwis lost their life-savings to sharks like Hotchin.

But I think more particularly…

That would never happen!! No way would that get voted in by anyone who already owns a house. But…

No housing, nobody to clean the loos.

This terrifies me.
I'm in the center-left and I watched the results of the last General Election with trepidation, and…

The inverted comments are the work of the reporter...

a kindy teacher at Welcome Bay's Earth Kids Childcare Centre, said she had put her name down at four real estate agencies, but so far had…

I'd start with setting up a body, inside or outside Treasury/RBNZ, which just as the Reserve Bank is mandated to control general…

Explain then, how when the British made buying a house more expensive (by changing the tax treatment of mortgage interest) prices fell substantially and stayed relatively low for some years (until the tax change was forgotten): http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/personal-finance-how-the-house-market-lost-its-miras-touch-1148693.html

This is the trillion dollar question.

Given that various analyses of the problem are true to a greater…

Minorities often feel uncomfortable when outnumbered by the mainstream...

I hadn't actually thought of that, but yes he is distinctly uncomfortable with poor people.

If it was only kiwis then the only real problem would be the Australian banks taking a billion dollars a year out of New Zealand and we could cope with that that, just.

But…

New Zealand is poor. That's a fact we can't/won't admit to ourselves. We have simply very little of value to contribute to the world and we as a country are poor.

The consequence of that is that people from countries that are…

Like #notallmen it's both accurate and completely missing the point.

I don't think it's accurate to blame the current government or the previous one. Kiwis prefer property investment over productive economic investment (eg Kiwisaver)..…

Hmm. That sounds suspiciously like waiting for the missing million. Or Godot. Either way, there's still no sign that the electorate is so upset about housing in Auckland that they would do anything…

Maybe it will motivate a generation to vote or revolt to get the change that is needed

I think this might finally be starting to sink in, actually.