Foreign Home-Buyer Ban Driven By Populist Hysteria

“The Government’s decision to ban foreign home-buyers shows it is all too willing to bow to populist pressure and is unserious about tackling the housing crisis”, says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“The evidence from jurisdictions which have restricted foreign home-buyers is that these measures do not work. Hong Kong, Vancouver, Sydney and Melbourne have all banned or taxed foreign home-buyers and yet are still in the top ten least-affordable cities in the world [see table below]. Even the Government’s officials at Treasury are lukewarm on the likely impact of the ban.

“The Resource Management Act helped create the housing crisis through its several hundred pages of bureaucratic processes, red-tape and anti-development bias.

“The Ministry for the Environment has told the Government that the RMA has completely failed to deliver sufficient housing and needs to be overhauled.

"Until the government shows it is willing to fix the RMA and free up land for development, it cannot be taken seriously on housing.

“Only ACT has consistently advocated for creating separate urban development legislation, prioritising land supply, and reducing red tape on developers”, says Mr Seymour.

Four of top 10 least affordable major cities restrict foreign home-buyers

Housing market

International affordability rank

Median multiple

Median house price

Policy

Hong Kong

406 (worst)

18.1

$5,422,000

Tax

Sydney

405

12.2

$1,077,000

Ban

Vancouver

404

11.8

$830,100

Tax

Melbourne

397

9.5

$740,000

Ban

ends

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