New Zealand bans foreign buyers in wake of house price bubble
Famed for its pleasant green lands and quaint Hobbit villages, New Zealand might not often be the first place that is associated with a housing crisis.
But in the latest sign that the country’s desperation to quell house prices have hit new depths, foreign buyers have now been banned from purchasing existing homes.
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The clampdown, which was voted through by the New Zealand government last night, applies to all nationalities except buyers from Singapore and Australia.
Over the last ten years house prices have shot up more than 60 per cent in the land famed for its unspoiled lands and civil stability, in the wake of growing demand from wealthy Asian buyers.
Finance minister David Parker told the New Zealand Parliament yesterday that “we should not be tenants in our own land”.
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Parker said that 20 per cent of homes in Auckland and 10 per cent oh homes in Queenstown Lakes district council area — two of the country’s most expensive housing markets — were bought by overseas owners in a recent quarter.
The new law comes on the back of the Labor-led coalition’s promise to tackle a housing crisis which had made New Zealand one of the most expensive countries for property in the world.
Along with the clampdown on foreign demand, the government plans to build 100,000 affordable new homes in the next ten years.