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Yes increasing supply will help, and my suggestions encourage increasing supply over turning existing stock into rentals, but if the new supply is all rentals t

Yes increasing supply will help, and my suggestions encourage increasing supply over turning existing stock into rentals, but if the new supply is all rentals that doesn’t help owner occupiers much. What needs to happen is owner occupiers are given a competitive edge when bidding for a property over a landlord. Hence more taxes and disincentives for buy to let purchasers. So for example a property selling for $1m, what would happen if it actually cost a landlord say $1.5m after taxes, higher interest etc, but an owner occupier would still just have to pay $1m. That gives an advantage to someone who actually needs the home. Edit: Also new supply takes a long time to ramp up, with planning permission, land acquisition, infrastructure, and there are materials shortages (wood especially) and cost overruns rampant at the moment. There is also a potential issue in the quality of supply (see the leaky building crisis in NZ in the 90s, or how small the apartments of the last decade are).

IkmoIkmo 5y ago
> What needs to happen is owner occupiers are given a competitive edge when bidding for a property over a landlord. Hence more taxes and disincentives for buy to let purchasers. A vibrant rental market is a great thing for many reasons (e.g. look up any study on labour mobility). Not sure why we should have tax advantages for home owners and tax disadvantages for the rental market. It's certainly not equitable to the renter class. And there's tons of evidence that home owner tax advantages flow mostly to incumbent home owners who gain the proceeds from any tax advantages spent to help new home owners get into the market.
- yardstick 5y ago
  Imagine if it was cheaper to buy a house and service the mortgage on it, than to rent. In such a case, is the rental market still a great thing? Yes I agree some rentals are necessary given the practical nature of the housing system. But once they become the cause of people being unable to afford to buy their own home it is an issue that needs addressing.
  - IkmoIkmo 5y ago
    > Imagine if it was cheaper to buy a house and service the mortgage on it, than to rent. In such a case, is the rental market still a great thing? What I'm trying to say is that if the government is manipulating the market by giving tax advantages to the homeowner market, and tax disadvantages to the rental market, that it's not a good way to spend public funds. Home ownership is exactly cheaper because it's so subsidised through various ta breaks. That makes renting more expensive vis-a-vis owning, which hurts the class of people who can't rent or has a different preference around life (e.g. more transient, more mobile, less fixed, travel for work, seasonal work etc). Then concluding 'oh owning is cheaper, but it's less accessible, let's give even more tax breaks and stimulus and make renting even more expensive' only exacerbates the problem, it doesn't solve it.
    - yardstick 5y ago
      I’m not sure how charging taxes on landlords is spending public funds that they would have otherwise had if that tax was not present. There’s no loss of public funds here. I’m also not sure how government policies that deprive people of the ability to own their own home (since they are priced out of the market by landlords, and landlords now own way too much of the housing stock) is a good thing. Right now in NZ about 1/3 of people rent [1]. It’s an all time high across all age groups. I’ve got nothing to back this up, but seems reasonable for people given the choice to own their property vs pay someone else, that they would want to own the property. Yes there are some that want to rent but i seriously doubt it’s anywhere near 1/3rd of the population. I also suspect a significant number of people who prefer to rent would not have this opinion anymore if house prices were not so inflated. Maybe 20-25% but no way the 1/3 of all Kiwis that we are seeing now. Also does 1/6th of all residential property NZ need to be owned by someone with 20+ properties under their belt? [2] Is it good use of public funds to allow such behaviour rather than say encouraging (non residential rental) businesses to grow and expand I’m not calling for elimination of rental properties, just a fair limit on them. In my opinion it’s more important every person is able to buy a single home than every landlord be able to buy as many homes as they want. 1. https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Reports/Housing-in-Aotearoa-2020/Download-data/housing-in-aotearoa-2020.pdf#page28 https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Reports/Housing-in-... 2. https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/business/mum-and-dad-landlords-own-more-than-a-third-of-property/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/business/mum-and-dad-landl...
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  I agree with you on this. Though to continue being a socratic a-hole on this thread, I might ask won't subsidizing renters always trickle up? The trickle down seems like a lie. I'm personally supportive of housing as a human right and think it's worth it and actually stimulating all around, turns out removing stresses of life is good for the economy and people. I think we did this backwards with stimi. Should have written checks to renters directly. The programs we do have for relief are woefully behind with hundreds of millions outstanding huge red tape. Giving all renters point blank could maybe help start balancing the scales just a tiny bit.

IkmoIkmo 5y ago

> What needs to happen is owner occupiers are given a competitive edge when bidding for a property over a landlord. Hence more taxes and disincentives for buy to let purchasers. A vibrant rental market is a great thing for many reasons (e.g. look up any study on labour mobility). Not sure why we should have tax advantages for home owners and tax disadvantages for the rental market. It's certainly not equitable to the renter class. And there's tons of evidence that home owner tax advantages flow mostly to incumbent home owners who gain the proceeds from any tax advantages spent to help new home owners get into the market.

yardstick 5y ago
Imagine if it was cheaper to buy a house and service the mortgage on it, than to rent. In such a case, is the rental market still a great thing? Yes I agree some rentals are necessary given the practical nature of the housing system. But once they become the cause of people being unable to afford to buy their own home it is an issue that needs addressing.
- IkmoIkmo 5y ago
  > Imagine if it was cheaper to buy a house and service the mortgage on it, than to rent. In such a case, is the rental market still a great thing? What I'm trying to say is that if the government is manipulating the market by giving tax advantages to the homeowner market, and tax disadvantages to the rental market, that it's not a good way to spend public funds. Home ownership is exactly cheaper because it's so subsidised through various ta breaks. That makes renting more expensive vis-a-vis owning, which hurts the class of people who can't rent or has a different preference around life (e.g. more transient, more mobile, less fixed, travel for work, seasonal work etc). Then concluding 'oh owning is cheaper, but it's less accessible, let's give even more tax breaks and stimulus and make renting even more expensive' only exacerbates the problem, it doesn't solve it.
  - yardstick 5y ago
    I’m not sure how charging taxes on landlords is spending public funds that they would have otherwise had if that tax was not present. There’s no loss of public funds here. I’m also not sure how government policies that deprive people of the ability to own their own home (since they are priced out of the market by landlords, and landlords now own way too much of the housing stock) is a good thing. Right now in NZ about 1/3 of people rent [1]. It’s an all time high across all age groups. I’ve got nothing to back this up, but seems reasonable for people given the choice to own their property vs pay someone else, that they would want to own the property. Yes there are some that want to rent but i seriously doubt it’s anywhere near 1/3rd of the population. I also suspect a significant number of people who prefer to rent would not have this opinion anymore if house prices were not so inflated. Maybe 20-25% but no way the 1/3 of all Kiwis that we are seeing now. Also does 1/6th of all residential property NZ need to be owned by someone with 20+ properties under their belt? [2] Is it good use of public funds to allow such behaviour rather than say encouraging (non residential rental) businesses to grow and expand I’m not calling for elimination of rental properties, just a fair limit on them. In my opinion it’s more important every person is able to buy a single home than every landlord be able to buy as many homes as they want. 1. https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Reports/Housing-in-Aotearoa-2020/Download-data/housing-in-aotearoa-2020.pdf#page28 https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Reports/Housing-in-... 2. https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/business/mum-and-dad-landlords-own-more-than-a-third-of-property/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/business/mum-and-dad-landl...
dillondoyle 5y ago
I agree with you on this. Though to continue being a socratic a-hole on this thread, I might ask won't subsidizing renters always trickle up? The trickle down seems like a lie. I'm personally supportive of housing as a human right and think it's worth it and actually stimulating all around, turns out removing stresses of life is good for the economy and people. I think we did this backwards with stimi. Should have written checks to renters directly. The programs we do have for relief are woefully behind with hundreds of millions outstanding huge red tape. Giving all renters point blank could maybe help start balancing the scales just a tiny bit.