New Zealand to ban foreigners from buying homes

This story and the billionaires seeking a bolthole in New Zealand to escape the Apocalypse is major news all over the planet.... except in New Zealand.

I have been vaguely aware of a debate about this but there is practically NO coverage in the country where it matters.

Here is my search on DuckDuckGo, especially targeting our public-service broadcaster, Radio NZ.

Instead the ONLY news outlet that has given any coverage to this opines “The country's allure for the mega-rich planning a safe space to ride out the apocalypse has become almost a cliche in recent years.”

We had dinner with a NZ-born friend last night who is involved in an EU project to develop a super-grid and has been in negotiations with leaders in China and India at the top levels.

He can’t even get a meeting with anyone in New Zealand (let alone the Green Minister for Climate Change)!

No body is interested in this country with anything other than making the right noises.

NewZealand's ban on foreigners buying homes set to start

After a spending splurge by millionaires seeking doomsday bolt-holes crowded out local buyers and pushed up property prices, a law curbing tforeigners from buying homes is due to pass in New Zealand next week.

Home purchases by tycoons such as tech billionaire and PayPal founder Peter Thie and Matt Lauer, the former NBC host who lost his job after allegations of sexual misconduct, have led the Government to crack down on the trend.

The country's allure for the mega-rich planning a safe space to ride out the apocalypse has become almost a cliche in recent years.

New Zealand to ban foreigners from buying homes

SMH,

11 August, 2018

Wellington: Foreigners face a ban on buying homes in New Zealand after a spending splurge by millionaires seeking doomsday bolt-holes crowded out local buyers and pushed up property prices.

Home purchases by tycoons such as tech billionaire Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder, and Matt Lauer, the former NBC host who lost his job after allegations of sexual misconduct, have led the New Zealand government to crack down on the trend.

The country's allure for the mega-rich planning a safe space to ride out the apocalypse has become almost a cliché in recent years. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder, told The New Yorker last year: "Saying you're buying a house in New Zealand is kind of a wink, wink, say no more".

But the country's centre-Left government, led by prime minister Jacinda Ardern, is blaming the apocalypse preppers for a major housing crisis, with rates of homelessness among the highest in the developed world.

Ms Ardern's Labour Party is adamant that a law change banning foreigners from buying most types of homes in the country - due to pass through parliament next week - will help damp down property prices. It also plans to build 100,000 affordable properties in a decade, resolve New Zealand's zoning and infrastructure woes, and bolster its ailing construction industry.

The bill will still allow foreigners to buy new apartments in large developments and multi-storey blocks. Existing homes remain off limits to non-residents, but people from Australia and Singapore will be exempt from the ban, due to free-trade rules.

"In this world of concentrating wealth, we don't want this coterie of ultra-wealthy people overseas being able to outbid successful New Zealanders for what is our birthright, not theirs," he said.

In central parts of Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, international buyers made up 18.7 per cent of purchases.

Chinese residents are the most common property-buying foreigners, followed by those from Australia, Britain, and Hong Kong. But since President Donald Trump's election, it has increasingly been wealthy Americans buying up doomsday bolt-holes in New Zealand who have made international headlines.

Telegraph, London