Want to own a home in New Zealand? TOO BAD.
The United States isn’t the only one… with a red-hot housing market. Prices in New Zealand are not much more attractive for homebuyers, comparatively. To remedy this, the country’s parliament has decided to ban foreigners from purchasing most of their residential property. However, they can still invest in apartment buildings and certain parts of the housing market.
Oh, it’s “our” fault… because New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is blaming foreign buyers for the crazy housing prices – although it is mostly the Chinese. The country also wants to see people that live there purchasing homes. But to buy a house, you need to be able to afford a house. Still, the effects of the new law are mostly unknown, especially considering foreign buyers only make up about 3% of total transactions.
Any relief would help… because housing prices have gone up nearly double over the last ten years in New Zealand. Prices are also up 5% this year alone. To give you an idea of who can afford to live in New Zealand, Peter Thiel and that guy fired from NBC’s Today Show have homes there. However, we have our housing market to complain about – so I am not sure how this story made the cut (slow news day…).