Net population gain from migration hits new record of 53,800 in year to January, more than double the previous 12 month figure

Wow , Thats just mind -blowing........... a rate of  177 new people every day , or 22 people evey 8 hour day , 7 days a week

And we dont have enough empty houses for those of us already here .

So the Housing New Zealand backlog will explode as poorer Kiwis are forced out of rentals that are sold or rented to wealthy migrants

Remind me again ........... what the oft - used colloqial definition of insanity is ? 

42% more indians than chinese... Interesting. They are less inclined to buy property, more frugal, more apartment orientated, more likely to not want to live in expensive auckland

For purely personal aestheic reasons, may we please have some more Spanish, Portuguese...actually any Latinos.

Great stuff! Plenty cash flowing in. Sad day for renters and FHB though. I hope they weren't spooked off from buying propety a few years ago, what with all these doom and gloomer, gold and peak oil losers pontificating about inflation, bubbles and unicorns.

20 odd years ago the numbers were limted to was was considered 'sensible" via a points system.  I assume this stil exists so there cant be many points needed these days.

Q is why is it the opposition is allowing such a free for all without comment?

This should read record net migration...to 'Auckland'. This is solely an Auckland thing and they can take the good (rampant house price increases for NIMBYs) and the bad (forgot about owning a house unless you get a leg up and/or are in the top 5% of earners). The first thing introduce a regional tax in Auckland to fund their own infastructure.

This is the proportionate equivalent of Britain receiving almost one million migrants per annum. It is a staggering situation with very significant implications for the future - in terms of the both the current Kiwi way of life and political factors. Yet almost no thought nor political debate has been entered into because all attempts to do so meet with the standard charge of xenophobia (which is simply an effective "hand me down" borrowed from Britain's ruling elite and used to stiffle all legitimate discussion). 

Mass immigration is constantly cited as being of great benefit to the ecomomy but this is demonstrable nonsense. Let's ask - what's been happening during a major part of the post-war mass immigration drive into the U.S., Europe, & Britain? Real remunerations have been falling! That's why it now takes two plus incomes to achieve less than what one income would have delivered in the fifties and sixties. More and more we see a "folie a deux" between the so-called left and so-called right over this issue. The "left" get their longed for demographic change whilst the "right" get their cheap labour and a depressant effect on the wages of established workers.

The historian will note that it was mass immigration that actually triggered the fall of Rome - yet based on the arguments of Key et al it should surely have delivered a renaissance? Property spurikers might do well to study the ultimate plight of thier worshipped asset class in that greatest of cities - and the astonishing (and rapid) collapse of Rome's population that was not rectified for literally centuries. How so - if mass immigration cures all things and leads to Shangri La?

New Zealand is frankly delusional in believing that it can not only replicate, but can proportionately exceed, what is happening elsewhere without confronting similar challenges. I know we are meant to accept the doctrine of New Zealand "exceptionalism" but this in itself is surely a racist sentiment if we adhere to the view that all peoples are equal. How, for example, are you going to handle a growing Muslim population - which will be disproportionately young - whilst at the same time acting as a suplicant of the United States which has brought such misery (and unnecessary misery) to so many adherents of that faith? How, for example, are you going to handle the situation if conflict between China and the United States develops some decades hence and a dichotomy occurs with a significant proportion of the migrant population over whose "side" we should take?

None of the above matters of course so long as house prices keep going up!

There is a strong linkage between migration rates and houses prices in NZ.  RBNZ has previously published graphs showing teh correlation.

The Government or even RBNZ as a macroprudential tool could have been and still could manage the maximum allowable rolling 12 month migration rate to take the heat out of the housing market.

Most of the migration goes to Auckalnd where the increase in house prices is the issue.

RMS reforms are needed but it will take long time as will building the addtional houses.

The housing crisis is about demand and supply.  Both need to be addressed.

It is sheer stupidity for NZer's to bid up the price of land (its not the house price going up faster than inflation) & mortgage themselves to the hilt.  This is just insanely unproductive.

I think we need more information.  Long term includes people comming on an OE/Gap Year (as the Germans call it) Students, and migrants for skilled labour shortages.  Most of these long term migrants are not buying in Auckland.  No doubt some are, but most will be comming for specified period of time before returning to whence they came.

See

http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research_and_publications/analytical_notes/2013…

Have to be careful managing the migration rate though as we dont want to crash the market, just ease it down.