4 ms·

> is there maybe some other common cause? Immigration. It's not that immigrants buy up the houses (opposites, we tend to live cramped up in flat shares). It's

> is there maybe some other common cause? Immigration. It's not that immigrants buy up the houses (opposites, we tend to live cramped up in flat shares). It's that they support landlords profits (with cream on top of not knowing your rights) and have overall pressure on market. Building should at least match immigration/population growth. Also not building dense enough. Kiwis always tout "I wouldn't wanna live in a house without a backyard" - well I don't wanna rent forever either. Given choice of no housing and shitty housing I choose shitty housing.

estebank 2y ago
I reject the idea that not having a backyard means that that property is shitty.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  It's not my sentiment, but I do see it why it's a big part of culture and life here. Flats tend to be horrible here. Townhouses are ok and are growing, albeit too slow and too far from public transport. There was some news yesterday about new row of townhouses around Auckland being classified as rural and unable to receive mail (rural mailboxes must be grouped in one spot, not on each house).
cjbgkagh 2y ago
I think people have the causality the wrong way around, the immigration is to prop up the economy. Price is set at the margins and even relatively small amounts of new immigration keeps pushing the margins up. Any successful attempts to fix the housing market, by reducing immigration or any other means, will implode the Ponzi economy. Absolutely no politician is going going to do that - you might as well hand them a grenade at ask them to pull the pin. It's my view that this implosion will happen, just later, with less control and with more devastation.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  It's one of many factors. NZ already becoming unattractive partly due to expensive housing and somewhat low wages - immigration is slowing down. Also new law allows import of foreign-certified building materials so that might help too. Thing with politicians is (depending on party) something like 90-100% of them are property owners and 30-70% are also property investors [0] so I just can't see how they would be willingly taking a haircut. (Cherry on top - most of them couldn't even afford to buy their homes now on MP salary) 0: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/12/the-full-list-of-how-many-properties-new-zealand-mps-own.html https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/12/the-full-lis...
strken 2y ago
The underappreciated problem with immigration is that it allows advanced economies to cover up issues that make raising kids difficult. A shrinking population crashes the housing market. A growing population powered by immigration rather than birth rate props up the housing market.
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  The irony being that (from a UK perspective at least), in the absence of immigration, childcare and senior care would be even less affordable than they are. Somebody has to do this work: it's essential, as well as hard, unglamorous and badly paid, and societies must take their pick from: - Family members, almost always women, who have to give up paid work. - Paid labour from less educated parts of their existing/indigenous population. - Migrant labour, whether temporary or permanent. The great mistake of Brexit is that the UK has now replaced temporary migrant labour (Poles and so on, who'd mostly come here in their early/mid 20s, stay for ten/fifteen years and then go home to raise families and be closer to their elders) with permanent migrants from much poorer countries who won't want to go back if they can at all avoid it.

estebank 2y ago

I reject the idea that not having a backyard means that that property is shitty.

dzhiurgis 2y ago
It's not my sentiment, but I do see it why it's a big part of culture and life here. Flats tend to be horrible here. Townhouses are ok and are growing, albeit too slow and too far from public transport. There was some news yesterday about new row of townhouses around Auckland being classified as rural and unable to receive mail (rural mailboxes must be grouped in one spot, not on each house).

cjbgkagh 2y ago

I think people have the causality the wrong way around, the immigration is to prop up the economy. Price is set at the margins and even relatively small amounts of new immigration keeps pushing the margins up. Any successful attempts to fix the housing market, by reducing immigration or any other means, will implode the Ponzi economy. Absolutely no politician is going going to do that - you might as well hand them a grenade at ask them to pull the pin. It's my view that this implosion will happen, just later, with less control and with more devastation.

dzhiurgis 2y ago
It's one of many factors. NZ already becoming unattractive partly due to expensive housing and somewhat low wages - immigration is slowing down. Also new law allows import of foreign-certified building materials so that might help too. Thing with politicians is (depending on party) something like 90-100% of them are property owners and 30-70% are also property investors [0] so I just can't see how they would be willingly taking a haircut. (Cherry on top - most of them couldn't even afford to buy their homes now on MP salary) 0: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/12/the-full-list-of-how-many-properties-new-zealand-mps-own.html https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/12/the-full-lis...

strken 2y ago

The underappreciated problem with immigration is that it allows advanced economies to cover up issues that make raising kids difficult. A shrinking population crashes the housing market. A growing population powered by immigration rather than birth rate props up the housing market.

Earw0rm 2y ago
The irony being that (from a UK perspective at least), in the absence of immigration, childcare and senior care would be even less affordable than they are. Somebody has to do this work: it's essential, as well as hard, unglamorous and badly paid, and societies must take their pick from: - Family members, almost always women, who have to give up paid work. - Paid labour from less educated parts of their existing/indigenous population. - Migrant labour, whether temporary or permanent. The great mistake of Brexit is that the UK has now replaced temporary migrant labour (Poles and so on, who'd mostly come here in their early/mid 20s, stay for ten/fifteen years and then go home to raise families and be closer to their elders) with permanent migrants from much poorer countries who won't want to go back if they can at all avoid it.