| As much as I appreciate some historical commentary on the matter, none of this is revolutionary thought, and the concept is widely understood by the most common everyman. There's nothing left here to ponder nor any insight to extract. I'll try add to this, though. Yes, rent and land forces down wages, but it's not just your fellow countryman doing it anymore (in so much as a citizen who is not a proprietor of a real-estate driven capital venture), it's companies like Progress Residential and other REITs that are fueled by the financial world to purchase homes and be your new neighbor. Yes, soon capital structures invested in such companies will mean that organizations like McDonalds and Starbucks will, in the grapevines of their institutional accounts, own a share of an REIT that owns homes in your neighborhood. They will be your new community, and soon your new landlords. I think the developed worlds should do as New Zealand and other nations caught on to, and protect their citizens from unscrupulous investors, foreign and domestic, looking to prey on the common man looking for a home to purchase. If a new wave of residential economic folly were to come upon us, the people waiting in the shadows are not individuals with deep pockets looking to become your future rent seeker, but entire institutions looking to purchase neighborhoods wholesale. I think we owe it to our children and those around us to push for non-partisan legislature that prevent such cancers from overtaking our countries. |
The NZ foreign buyer ban is incredibly weak. For one it’s only on existing homes. Foreigners can still buy land and buy newly built homes with the land under them. There are also plenty of ways around it buying through third parties, etc. On top of this NZ has failed to introduce a capital gains tax on houses. House prices there are some of the most expensive in the world.