Banning foreign home buyers - the New Zealand experiment
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2019
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been a year since New Zealand put all but a stop to foreigners buying houses. The near-total ban followed years of astonishing price increases - fuelled in part by Chinese money and American tech billionaires buying up some of the country's most desirable plots. With the help of seasoned property reporter Greg Ninness, and New Zealand’s biggest real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson, we’re in Auckland to investigate whether the law has improved housing affordability. Photo: The Auckland skyline, credit: BBC
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, everyone is Bai Chi-Shael, |
| 0:04.0 | from Thompson's city office. |
| 0:06.1 | It's very much to talk about the go-mite-comay-comy. |
| 0:13.0 | An advert for New Zealand's biggest real estate firm in Mandarin. |
| 0:18.2 | Whether ads like this are aimed at New Zealand's sizable Chinese-speaking community |
| 0:22.2 | or the Chinese market abroad is unclear. But a perception that New Zealand property was being |
| 0:28.5 | marketed to cashed up mainland Chinese buyers alongside a surge in house prices led to the country |
| 0:35.2 | introducing a controversial bit of legislation. |
| 0:38.5 | We believe it's the birthright of New Zealanders to buy homes in New Zealand |
| 0:42.8 | in a market that is shaped by New Zealand buyers, not by international price pressures. |
| 0:49.2 | As you can hear from this parliamentary debate, when New Zealand introduced a new law last August, all but outlawing |
| 0:55.5 | foreign property ownership for non-residents, it wasn't without critics. |
| 1:00.1 | This is a bill without principle. It is a bill to try and cynically blame foreigners, particularly |
| 1:08.0 | those with Chinese sounding names, for a government that has no other policy |
| 1:15.2 | in which to actually improve and increase house ownership in New Zealand. |
| 1:21.6 | In today's Business Daily with me Vivian Nunes here on the BBC World Service, |
| 1:27.1 | we'll be asking whether this law has achieved what the government set out to do, |
| 1:31.8 | address an affordability crisis, and keep New Zealand homes in the hands of New Zealanders. |
| 1:37.4 | All was targeting foreign buyers simply about politics, |
| 1:41.2 | an easy way to win votes from those priced out of the market. |
| 1:45.0 | Everything was being sold by auction. |
| 1:48.0 | There was no prices on anything. |
... |
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