Posts by Jeff Weir
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Bernard Hickey goes mixed-metaphor-happy on the controversy.
Treasury suggested it could be collected by Auckland Council, which could retain some tax to invest in infrastructure for new housing. That would at least stun two birds with one stone.
Hopefully not Kereru...
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to andin,
Its not and never should be in the “dream” category of human activity. It is a necessity. Im pretty sure (I’m not a qualified naturalist) all land based mammals, yes we are just animals, need warmth and shelter. In the parlance of today, a home. This necessity has taken on grotesque forms.
C'mon...owning your own home is not a *necessity* of life. Even in nature, plenty of creatures effectively rent.
It's a necessity to have shelter, yes. It's not a necessity that you *own* the shelter though. I don't own my shelter, or any others. Every fortnight I purchase the right to live in a shelter owned by someone else. And for me, the cost of that 'right to occupy' is lower than the all-up cost of ownership, given the pretty meek rental I'm renting. So I bank some of the difference.
New Zealanders need to be made aware of a a broader dream called 'Financial Security' that isn't necessarily shackled to a dream called 'Home Ownership'
I have a kiwisaver account. It has some good cash in it. I have growing equity in a Term Deposit, too. I may elect to use these to buy a house - if I can afford it. I may not. If I can afford to buy a house, that may or may not improve my Financial Security dream outcome compared to leaving it in a Term Deposit/Kiwisaver and not signing up for a very large mortgage.
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OnPoint: My last name sounds Chinese, in reply to ,
not all community’s of people who hold land titles, view housing as a market.
Ah. The housing market doesn't exist because some people don't/can't participate in it or don't view it as a market. Might as well add the rental market, car market, and flea-market to the list of dumb phrases that should be outlawed, by that logic.
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OnPoint: My last name sounds Chinese, in reply to ,
Is your home more than a roof, walls, windows and doors that lock – letter box, Internet connection and power supply?
.
If you use the definition "the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household" then I guess not. But again, you've lost me.
What has this got to do with your thought that the term 'Housing Market' is a
dumb arse phrase
that is overly abstracted?
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Let them buy bonds!!! It’s still foreign ownership, granted, but the lesser of economic sovereignty loss evils, I suspect.
The purist in me wants to disagree, and say let overseas non-residents own our unproductive housing stock, provided we invest just as heavily in our productive business stock. The rent they get for it is dictated by the market rate in the rental market, in which they are competing between other owners for tenants. I'm assuming that renting is going to be cheaper than the all-up cost of owning, so the renter that could otherwise *nearly* afford to buy a house could elect to invest the difference in kiwisaver rather than beer and skittles.
As has been the case for as long as I’ve been buying residential houses, foreign direct investment in housing drives up prices
. Yes, but we simply don’t know by how much. And given the cost of political capital, while targeting FDI is one way to increase supply, we don’t know what quantifiable effect that’s going to have on supply. I’m not saying we shouldn’t. I’m just saying that it might or might not make much difference. Maybe we have to do it and find out. Suck it and see.
A great deal of that investment is leveraged based on QE/ZIRP policies in offshore country-of-origin.
I understand that this would make us more attractive.
Our small little island is like a cork bobbing up and down hopelessly in a sea awash with free money of all colours – aside from our own.
…but I don’t understand that ‘aside from out own’ bit. While QE/ZIRP policies (whatever they are…I’m uninformed) may be driving extra money here, it’s still a level playing field for the players on the field, isn’t it? Same risks, same returns? (Assuming we ignore exchange rate risk).
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OnPoint: My last name sounds Chinese, in reply to ,
How would you feel about the seabed and foreshore being privately owned?
Not great. I don't follow your point, though.
Is it realistic, to live without having to own rent or lease land?
Not for me. I rent. But again, I don't follow your point.
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Sorry, Steven, you've lost me. Can you elaborate? Is the housing market any more abstracted than any other market?
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Foreign direct investment (the key word being direct) in our residential housing stock comes in under completely different country-of-origin conditions – hence not a level playing field – unfair competition – locally earned/sourced money cannot compete.
God forbid we kiwis should admit defeat, leave the foreigners to their bubble on our soil - and invest in something else.
There’s a pretty good compliment to owning a house. It’s called renting and saving. I do it. It’s not the end of the world. My landlord who receives my hard earned cash is a non-resident. He lives in Japan. Probably owns property there, too. He certainly owns lots of properties here. Maybe that makes him bad in some folks’ opinions. If it helps you feel better about him, he’s a kiwi. Maybe that makes you feel worse about him…particularly given that he hasn’t lived here for ever. He was just lucky enough to be born here as well as marry a Japanese wife…he gets the best of both property markets.
Of course, he gets the worst of both property markets to. Because what seems to be missing from many people’s understanding is that:
* this is indeed a market,
* it can go up and down
* it’s not the only market in town
* it’s not even the only market for housing or property in town
* other markets also can go up and down tooWhat makes housing so special? Why do we have this nation myth that “Everything will be okay if I can buy a house (and I hope house prices keep going up after I do)?”. Heck, even I fall for it sometimes, and feel like a loser when I look at my pretty shabby rental that I’d be ashamed to live in if I owned it. Paint peeling from the outside. Wallpaper peeling on the inside. Insulated, but not as warm as I’d like. (Probably can’t be made much better because it’s an old house, with old windows and old gaps).
I often say to myself in fits of low self-esteem “Man, if I owned this place, I would sooo spend upwards of a hundred k making it look nice, so I could feel like a winner”. But I don’t own it. So unfortunately I simply can’t overcapitalize. It’s criminal, I know. Instead, in a marginally successful effort to mitigate my low self-esteem for being a lowly renter, I’m practically forced by the ghost of retirement future to put 8% of my salary money – plus the additional extra lump sum payment from time to time – into Kiwisaver. And instead of all that weekend painting and wallpapering, I'm forced to continue working on the code for the commercial computer app I'm in the process of finishing. Bah, humbug.
Sorry kids, looks like Daddy won’t be able to offer a house as partial security when it comes to your turn to attempt your own leap into the market (hoping you’ll catch a rapidly rising window-sill by your fingertips while at the same time praying the window sash doesn’t take that exact inopportune moment to slam down on said fingertips). Let’s just admit defeat, kids, and open a dowdy KiwiSaver account each instead, and pay the money into that, instead.
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Rob Salmond,
Our discussion last week focused on Chinese offshore buyers because (1) the *data* indicated this group was a major outlier
But how do you know if it was only a major outlier because you were unable to slice more accurately, and so quite possibly used an incredibly poor proxy? What in your data indicates that Chinese offshore buyers are a major outlier?
The reason do to ethnicity-based analysis was because of the large disconnect between the ethnic makeup of Aucklanders and the ethnic makeup of Auckland house buyers. To us, that *disconnect* is further evidence – on top of all the other circumstantial stuff we’ve seen – off offshore speculation driving up Auckland house prices.
That's not evidence. That's a hypothesis.
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There’s a pretty good compliment to owning a house. It’s called renting and saving. I do it. It’s not the end of the world. My landlord who receives my hard earned cash is a non-resident. He lives in Japan. Probably owns property there, too. He certainly owns lots of properties here. Maybe that makes him bad in some folks’ opinions. If it helps you feel better about him, he’s a kiwi. Maybe that makes you feel worse about him…particularly given that he hasn’t lived here for ever. He was just lucky enough to be born here as well as marry a Japanese wife…he gets the best of both property markets.
Of course, he gets the worst of both property markets to. Because what seems to be missing from many people’s understanding is that:
* this is indeed a market,
* it can go up and down
* it’s not the only market in town
* it’s not even the only market for housing or property in town
* other markets also can go up and down tooWhat makes housing so special? Why do we have this nation myth that “Everything will be okay if I can buy a house, and if house prices keep going up after I do?”. Heck, even I fall for it sometimes, and feel like a loser when I look at my pretty shabby rental that I’d be ashamed to live in if I owned it. Paint peeling from the outside. Wallpaper peeling on the inside. Insulated, but not as well insulated as I’d like. (Probably can’t be made much better because it’s an old house, with old windows and old gaps).
I often say to myself in fits of low self-esteem “Man, if I owned this place, I would sooo spend upwards of a hundred k making it look nice, so I could feel like a winner". But I don’t own it. So unfortunately I simply can’t overcapitalize. It’s criminal, I know. Instead, in a marginally successful effort to mitigate my low self-esteem for being a lowly renter, I’m practically forced by the ghost of retirement future to put 8% of my salary money – plus the additional extra lump sum payment from time to time – into Kiwisaver. Bah, humbug.
Sorry kids, looks like Daddy won’t be able to offer a house as partial security when it comes to your turn to attempt your own leap into the market (hoping you’ll catch a rapidly rising window-sill by your fingertips while at the same time praying the window sash doesn’t take that exact inopportune moment to slam down on said fingertips). Let’s just admit defeat, kids, and open a dowdy KiwiSaver account each instead, and pay the money into that, instead.