Mike's Minute: Foreigners buying homes - we got there at last

We got there at last. 

If you are a Golden Visa holder, that’s a person who puts $5-10 million into the country, you can now buy a house. 

The idea that we expected you to put that sort of money into a country and then rent was, and is, absurd. 

Not to get into the weeds too deeply, but the Golden Visa is different to the 183 days rule. 

The Golden Visa means you can invest but not be here the 183 days. But it now means you do qualify for a $5m+ home. 

None of this is complex. None of this needed to be as hard as it has turned out to be. 

You will note from Winston Peter's comments yesterday he has preserved his ongoing dislike for so-called foreigners coming here and snapping up the countryside and locking the rest of us out of the market, none of which happened of course, but the xenophobic streak runs deep in that party. 

But if you go back to National's original idea of $2m, a lot of water has gone under the bridge. A lot of banging of heads has happened and some people have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to what I would've thought was a fairly obvious finish line. 

The weird thing for me about Peters is this is the same bloke who is out in the world pleading with said world to come and invest. He's saying come and do business, we are open. 

He is trying on one hand to desperately rectify the damage of the Labour Government Covid era, while at the same time doing the old New Zealand First "cake and eat it too" trick. "Please come, please bring your money but, oh, given you're a foreigner you can use Airbnb". It's nonsense. 

At $5m it changes little for you and me. It’s a tiny portion of homes. Its two million pounds and it's three million US dollars. For some global citizens it's pocket change. 

But it all helps, and man do we need help. 

The worry is the difficulty in getting here. Easy, obvious decisions should not be hard. They should be quick and slick. 

But we got there. It all helps. 

It was a good day for NZ Inc.   

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