Oddly enough, I don't mention gated communities at all. What I do mention is choice. When it comes to letting people live the way they wish to live, I am pro-choice. THAT in essence is "the sprawl argument."…

And "how affordable will it be to live in his sprawling, car-dependent suburbs when oil prices soar even higher?" Well, isn't the future affordability or unaffordability up to those who choose to live in these sprawling, car-dependent suburbs, and to invest in their own future?
After all,…

No, its a capital tax, not a capital gain tax.

Proof.... if it has a zero rise in value next year, does he pay no rates? I doubt it....

Lack of capital gains tax IS the reason property…

In our area of Wellington, the rumour is that the council will raise the rates by double the CPI, due to the capital gains in the neighborhood. This will be charged irrespective of whether the ratepayers have the…

Seems prices are going up in some areas – a great deal too – and falling in other parts of Sydney.

Juha, that's what makes it confusing. I think the average, Sydney-wide, is a slow-down in the rate of increase overall. But you're absolutely right in that the central areas,…

Tom, I think you will find that interest costs for residential owner occupied housing have *not* been included in the CPI since 1999

Mea culpa: blame it on me extrapolating half-heard radio reports about "house prices driving up the cost of living". Personally, since I've never owned property and have…

If they'd put their…

this press release masquerading as a news article in the Herald makes me wonder if the Herald editors are stupid or just morons. So, when did "the world" get reduced to just six countries--all English-speaking, of course. I must have missed that news.

The survey found Australians had the world's…

Thanks for the post at the top. Couldn't agree more. People didn't seem to like petrol creeping towards $2.00/litre last year. I wonder how are they going to deal with $6.00/litre petrol within five years?

It's a pity that NZ doesn't have much of a tradition of urban…

When house prices go up faster than rents, it's a fair bet that they're not being driven by demand for a place to live, but by an expectation of capital gains.

Quite. Or you look at the yield on rental properties. I can't see any around where I live where…

Seems prices are going up in some areas – a great deal too – and falling in other parts of Sydney.

There are not many fewer houses in Greater Auckland than people wanting to live in the area – lack of properties isn't what causes…

Are there any stats that measure something like the number of bedrooms or the square metres of space available per head of population?

Probably bedrooms per head: it's possible to derive overcrowding indices from census stats, so when the detailed 2006 data is released (in a month or so) it'll…

I'd be very intererested to know that, because it would help tease apart the extent to what price is being driven up by actual shortage vs speculators.

Obviously, money has become easier to come by (for some) for property…

that said, people have to have roof over their heads

Absolutely, and I agree that we need many more homes. They just don't need to be spread out on quarter acre sections for as far as the eye can see (and the SUV can travel).

It's a pity that NZ…

Auckland has plenty of sprawl already, I'd have thought. Not much smaller than LA, area-wise,…

Let's run a sweep: how many more news stories will we get this year about the unaffordability of houses without hearing the dreaded words Capital Gains Tax?

We'll never hear it from these sources, because fundamentally they don't give a monkey's about whether Joe and Jill Middle-Income can afford their…