Tony Alexander’s eight housing fixes
BNZ Chief Economist Tony Alexander has eight proposals for helping with housing problems. They are:
- Initiate a large builder training programme targeting not just youth but low skilled migrants. Yes, the migrant gates would need to be opened. Just the signalling of strong intention to boost builder numbers would make investors think twice about their capital gain assumptions.
- Ban councils from imposing any development fees and allow developers to install their own infrastructure.
- Create an SOE whose sole purpose is to undercut existing building materials suppliers through bulk purchases from offshore, nodal warehousing and distribution from just three or four locations in the country, with a separate agency responsible for monitoring the quality of materials sourced.
- Initiate a new large state house building programme relying largely on the to be created new carpenters etc. Constrain new state houses to more efficient building systems including containerised modular housing (this doesn’t involve shipping containers), central and screwed in foundations, etc.
- Ban house sales to non-residents (even new houses given the ease with which special developments could arise targeting solely folk offshore and soaking up construction sector resources).
- Impose a tax on all houses owned by Kiwis offshore with the aim of encouraging them to sell them.
- Put in place a capital gains tax on second properties and farmland and immediately payable stamp duty for all second house purchases.
- Rezone all land within 10-20 kilometres of existing city boundaries as residential
Nice to have some radical thinking in this area. Tony predicts the chances of hos policies being implemented:
Low, zero, zero, mild, mild, zero, low, zero.
Which ones do you agree with?
I like 1, 2, 6 and 8. I support a CGT but on all properties, not just some.