Mike's Minute: Stop mucking around - remove the foreign buyer ban

OneRoof had a story over the weekend about an apartment in Auckland that is for sale for $17 million.

It was for sale for $16 million, so they have put the price up despite the fact it has been for sale for several years.

They are looking to the international market where $17 million is not a lot of money.

The article also featured information about a Knight Frank Wealth report that ranked the priorities of those with money and real estate investment was right up there, as well as, for the super wealthy, the ability to have a super yacht park featured highly as well.

The point being, in Auckland your $17 million penthouse can be a few hundred metres away from your super yacht. Yet, in this country foreigners can't do that because they aren't allowed to buy a house.

What they are allowed to do is get a golden visa and the new rules have proved popular. There is good inquiry. For $5-10 million you invest in a business, you employ, you grow, you help us out and, yet, you still can't buy a house.

The fact the apartment has been on the market for years clearly shows no locals want it, or can afford it.

So the fear, as proffered by some, that foreigners take houses off New Zealanders at this level clearly isn't true.

The Government, or parts of it, want to fix this anomaly and yet they can't, or don’t, because NZ First refuses.

Rumours a while back suggested a compromise had been reached. National had an election policy of $2 million as a protection on lower priced houses. The rumour was a figure of $5-6 million had been reached with NZ First but it never came to fruition.

So in Budget week, when yet again the dire state of our finances is laid bare and a commentary around growth will be pushed hard, one of the answers of the wealthy having money to invest, has not been fully enacted because one part in this Government is xenophobic.

This battle to regain our economic mojo is hard enough as it is without ankle-tapping ourselves by refusing to enact blatantly obvious ideas.

If we can't pull every lever possible we have no one to blame but ourselves.

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