By David Hargreaves
Unintended consequences they call it.
Just perhaps the cute advertising campaign in Singapore inviting investors there to buy Auckland apartments and get Kiwis to give them half their weekly wages will at last help to focus the Government's mind on the fact that there really is a bit of a problem with the levels of foreign investment in New Zealand property.
And it possibly might also force some realisation that whatever the current levels of offshore investment here, these levels are only likely to increase.
I actually say good on the folks who came up with the advertising - a Singaporean business ultimately owned by Dunedin-based company Australian Property Solutions. Director Lyndon Fairbairn told Radio New Zealand's Morning Report that Auckland was a "property investors dream", with no capital gains tax or stamp duty.
It just pointed out the obvious. A good piece of marketing.
But interestingly, in defending his advertising campaign Fairbairn went on to point out that his company was essentially doing a positive service by selling new properties - rather than existing ones - to offshore investors and creating work for Kiwis by the building of them.
"We don't sell big hunks of land, beaches or existing property. I think there's a bit of a fine line there, if you are selling existing property to someone overseas you're adding zero value or benefit to the New Zealand economy."
Now, surely, that's a bit of a steer for the Government.
It really does seem to be time for looking at restricting offshore-based buyers to only new properties - so that their investment here become a positive whereby they are helping to add to the housing supply.
And what the heck, how about at the very least throwing some stamp duty into the mix as well.
The subject of foreign ownership of New Zealand property remains a vexed one.
A large part of the angst comes from the fact that there's still very little information about foreign buyers - how many of them there are, where they own, etc.
In the absence of hard data, imaginations run wild, so that the 'educated' thinking in Auckland is of a city teeming with foreigners all clutching suitcases stuffed with cash and buying up large.
The only thing you can say is, that with the world becoming ever more and more a global village, then so foreign buyers will be attracted to our shores. And if we don't level the playing field and put on the kind of foreign ownership limitations and taxes and duties that apply in other countries then logically we will become very popular as an investment destination.
With things as they are at the moment, that could only mean one thing: That our squeezed Auckland house market becomes even more squeezed.
So, rather than get ticked off at the idea of Kiwis as some sort of slaves working down the pit 80 hours a week to keep fat cat foreign owners of our meagre dwellings in the luxury to which they are accustomed, I really do welcome the publicity these Singaporean adverts have attracted.
Perhaps now the Government will actually have to stand up, and get off its hands, and do something. The pressure is certainly building.
19 Comments
Imagine an NZ outlet would have run an ad about Singaporeans slaving away for their New Zealand landlord masters. Accusations of colonialism, racism, nazism would fly left, right and center and the Singapore government would turn it into a diplomatic issue.
Looks like Kiwis are happy to be the butt of racist remarks, or where is the outcry?
Fits well, btw, with the saintly Lee Kwan Yew's "white trash of Asia" racist outrage. And with Singapore Airlines and its ads going on about "Asian values" as if Asian ethnicity was a determinant of a disposition to hard work etc.
Something is going very wrong in our society, if we allow people to buy into our country and ridicule us for it. Never been a friend of government regulation, but high time to shut the door on investment from undesirable dictatorships like Singapore.
The so called "white trash of Asia" have been taking us for an unchallenged ride for quite a while.
New Zealand's big four Australian owned banks have almost trebled annual dividends.
The four - ANZ NZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac NZ - paid dividends totaling a combined $2.561 billion for their 2014 financial years, up from $920 million last year. Read more
How about a UK outlet runnings ads about investing in singapore real estate having Singaporeans pay your mortgage! https://www.ipinglobal.com/lp/sg/singapore/?mcid=1045&campaign=Search_S…
Just one of hundreds of such outfits. Racist? I don't think so.
NZ does have a DTA -with Singapore.
you really do have to pay close attention
This morning Lyndon Fairburn from Australian Property Solutions of Dunedin, the author of that Singapore radio advert, was on the radio spruiking his services
ah-hah Dunedin - ah-hah - that's ok then - he's a local boy
A closer look and its
Local Address: Dunedin, Queensland, Australia
Politicians, bureaucrats and public servants must have taught him how to "Screw the next guy to line your pocket" technique........after all it is only the niche that is different !!!
If you don't have a Government and bureaucracy providing an equal/level playing field in a free market then you will always have an advantaged player.
" Lyndon Fairbairn " ... even the man's name sets off my Gummy BS Detector System ... the red lights are flashing folks , never trust a real estate spruiker whose name is right out of a P.G.Wodehouse novel ...
... " oh I say , Bertie old chap , let me introduce you to Lyndon , " Barney " to his mates , into selling houses to the colonials dontcha know ! ... absolute stinker at bridge , aren't you Barney .... have a G & T old sport , righty-o .... " ...
John Key is in Gallipoli telling everyone how our soldiers sacrificed themselves for NZ while back home he is selling houses, farms and letting in virtually any immigrant who wants to come here.
Future generations of NZers will look back in disgust when they find out they will be second class citizens in their own country.
My father, who was one of the first soldiers to go overseas, would turn in his grave if he knew what was happening to NZ now. We are open to the highest bidder from Asia.
Asian money mostly goes into existing housing and farms. It does not go into anything productive which employs people. Some of this Asian money going into real estate is money laundering.
Shame on you, John Key.
John Key is in Gallipoli telling everyone how our soldiers sacrificed themselves for NZ while back home he is selling houses, farms and letting in virtually any immigrant who wants to come here.
Future generations of NZers will look back in disgust when they find out they will be second class citizens in their own country.
My father, who was one of the first soldiers to go overseas, would turn in his grave if he knew what was happening to NZ now. We are open to the highest bidder from Asia.
Asian money mostly goes into existing housing and farms. It does not go into anything productive which employs people. Some of this Asian money going into real estate is money laundering.
Shame on you, John Key.
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