Chatham housing
When Housing Minister Phil Twyford spoke at the Initiative’s retreat last week, I had only one regret about having invited him: Our event is held under Chatham House rules. [...]
Housing
Having and eating your housing cake
If house prices go up, it is a scandal. If house prices go down, it is a disaster. That must be the logic by which the media reports on the ups and downs of the property market. [...]
Financial innovation beats Kiwibuild
Besides, the construction of 9,000 homes is more than 26 times the number of buyers who have qualified for Kiwibuild so far. It’s a pity that complex finance initiatives do not make for great photo opportunities with the Prime Minister. [...]
Economic literacy and the housing debate
At my next housing discussion, I will not mention I am an economist. Instead, I will demand that houses grow on trees, that infrastructure funding falls from heaven, and that people stop charging each other for products and services. Kumbaya, kumbaya. [...]
Housing reform vs populist gimmickry
It is hard to introduce populist policies without hurting the economy. That is the takeout from the Government’s decision to water down its planned restrictions on foreign property buyers. [...]
Caution needed on value capture
As tempting it may appear to tap into land value uplifts, we need to be cautious. The model can work – but we need to apply it only in the cases where it can work. [...]
Challenges stack up for super minister
There is no more challenging task than making New Zealand’s cities thrive in the global era of urbanisation. Quite appropriately, we now have a superminister to deal with it. [...]
The power of ideas
"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.” [...]
A big step towards affordable housing
The Government's new infrastructure programme is a huge step towards housing affordability. But much more needs to be done. [...]
The wrong type of home ownership
We should not regard the homeownership rate as the most important measure of a functioning housing market. Just because the ownership rate is falling does not tell us much on its own. Neither is a high ownership rate necessarily a positive. [...]