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Motu's Grimes says Auckland urban limits driving land prices up, stifling development

Posted in News

The author of a report on high Auckland land and house prices has recommended to the 2025 Productivity Taskforce the extension of Auckland's Metropolitan Urban Limits (MUL) as one way to remove roadblocks to the development of New Zealand's biggest city. Motu economist Arthur Grimes told the taskforce that Auckland's development was at risk from being stifled by high house prices, with current policy settings around the MUL making houses more expensive. The MUL can be seen in red in the graphic on the left. Auckland is land-rich, Grimes said, adding that the MUL could be extended around existing infrastructure such as the Northern Motorway. This would have the double effect of lowering Auckland house prices and creating more space for productive 'urban' activities not allowed outside the boundaries in rural zones. 'Urban' activities not allowed included setting up factories or housing, or even schools in rural zones.

In a previous Motu study with Yun Liang, Grimes and Liang found that land just inside Auckland's MUL, or growth limits, was valued at approximately 10 times land that is just outside the boundary. The earlier study looked at land value increases between 1992 to 2004. Here is a 2008 working paper from Grimes and Liang on the Northern Motorway extension. Lower land prices would make it less expensive for businesses to operate inside the expanded boundaries, and lower house prices would mean workers would be better able to afford to live in the city rather than being forced away by high prices. Grimes recommended Auckland's growth limits should be reviewed in a more flexible manner, rather than having long periods between boundary reviews, especially because of the increase in Auckland's population (38% between 1991 and 2006). "Auckland is a polycentric city with a population that grew, on average, by 2.2% between 1991 and 2006 (census years), a 38% increase. Simple application of growth limits, with long periods between boundary reviews could, under these circumstances result in considerable inefficiencies and inequities, including problems of housing affordability (Grimes et al. 2007). Our results therefore imply that growth limits within Auckland should be reviewed in a flexible manner that accounts for the impacts of an increasingly binding constraint," Grimes and Liang said. The MUL was formally adopted by Auckland in 1998, although these boundaries reflected earlier growth limits, Grimes and Liang said. "A study by the Auckland Regional Growth Forum (1999) [ARGF], conducted shortly after formal adoption of the MUL in 1998, examined the historical use and impact of growth limits in Auckland. It noted that MULs have been used for the past fifty years in Auckland, so their use under the 1998 Regional Growth Strategy is not new," they said. "In earlier years, the prime motivation for their use was to avoid inefficient and expensive provision of urban infrastructure but "in more recent times the emphasis has switched to protection of the environment in the area outside the MUL" (ARGF, p. 4)." See the full powerpoint presentation to the 2025 Taskforce here. Grimes Ahsi 5oct09

78 Comments

Dr Grimes is to applauded

Dr Grimes is to applauded for clearly spelling out the urgent need to open up land supply for Auckland. The other New Zealand urban markets should not be forgotten as they are all "severely unaffordable" (refer latest Demographia Survey on my website) in being well outside three times household income.

What a "normal market" is can be summed up in one paragraph really -

For a city to rate as "affordable" house prices must not exceed three times gross annual household incomes, so that people do not have to load themselves up with in excess of 2.5 times their annual income in mortgage debt. To achieve this, new starter housing stock of an acceptable standard to puchasers, must be allowed to be provided on the fringes at 2.5 Median Multiple of specific urban markets. The fringe housing should have development ratios of 17 to 23% serviced lot / section - the balance the actual house construction. Normal urban markets through the building cycle should oscilate from a Floor Multiple of 2.3 through a Swing Multiple of 2.5 to a Ceiling Multiple of 2.7 - to ensure maximum stability and long term performance of the residential construction sector.

For those who dont "get it" - I would suggest the above paragraph be read and re read until you do.

Its now time for the New Zealand Government with the local authorities to start getting this country on the long road to restoring housing affordability. Its going to take a decade or two to sort the current mess out.

Where is the Minister of Housing? It is his responsibility to be leading on this issue.

Hugh Pavletich
Performance Urban Planning
Christchurch
New Zealand

@ Hugh Pavletich - the

@ Hugh Pavletich - the issue is not Land Availability... It's

1- Gowth in Money Supply Growth [ie Debt as Money] and...
2- Population Growth...

My questions are...

1- where is John key on on 1- above?
2- Can you talk to the Pope about 2- Above?

Thanks... that wuold be turely helpful.

Mouse... about your point 1

Mouse... about your point 1

The report said that land prices within the boundaries are 10 times the land prices just out side the boundries...
I see that as simply being a supply/demand issue, that is largely the result of Councils keeping supply tight, as a result of their policies.

Hugh is right.

The difference in prices has little to do with money supply.

Yes Roelof, and when easy

Yes Roelof, and when easy credit was available to fuel the housing boom in the USA it was only the tightly regulated land markets there which boomed, cities with liberal planning regimes had much more stable house prices

Hugh - mouse is right,

Hugh - mouse is right, the problem is debt and unbridled credit expansion. Developers conveniently omit this from their calculations. Your multipliers are completely meaningless in this context. I'd like to see you do your fancy calculations on Harare and see what your "conclusions" are. That would be a laugh.

1) We are likely at the first stages of a long depression, so a 30-50% drop in house prices is not out of the question at all. This should improve "affordability".

2) However, a much bigger issue is one of the end of cheap energy. Based on a rough analysis of IEA data, USD$200+ -a-barrel oil is probably not much more than 5-10yrs away (in today's values...who knows where inflation will push that figure to a decade from now). How will Auckland's commuters deal with this problem? Of course, the "developers" will have cleaned up by then and couldn't care less about "ghost" suburbs.

3) Auckland has one of the lowest city population densities in the world. Given that we can barely afford to maintain infrastructure within the current limits, how will we take on the extra costs of MUL expansion?

With majority of MPs being

With majority of MPs being landlords themselves............

Ludwig - Auckland's density isn't

Ludwig - Auckland's density isn't THAT low, in fact its higher than a couple of the bigger Aussie cities and many American cities
I think some limited urban expansion is part of the solution, but not all of it.
You will note thata Grimes advocates intensification as well.

Its not a black or white choice, we'll need both.

Re: urban sprawl - many commentators have noted that many modern cities have moved away from a monocentric commuter centre. That means if some rural land on the fringes of Manakau was turned into housing only a proportion of residents living there would commute to Auckland. Some would commute to Manukau (ie. a fairly short commute), work from home, or might be retired.

Hugh - the current housing minister is proving very ineffective and I for one lack confidence in his ability to facilitate the change necessary

The free marketeers keep trotting

The free marketeers keep trotting out this chestnut about urban limits to try and explain why the market isn't rational (i.e. it must be the governments fault) but the numbers don't back it up.
Check out QV's numbers at this link. In the debt fuelled boom from '00 to '07 house prices went up as follows;
NZ 120%
Large cities 111%
Provincial cities 146%
Rural areas 149%
http://www.qv.co.nz/propertyinformation/KnowledgeCentre/differencesinhou...
The fact is that massive growth in credit will push up prices everywhere, including areas with an almost infinite supply, as in the rural areas.

As for the argument that cities in the US with unrestricted land supply didn't experience the same unrealistic boom in prices, how do they explain the massive new empty subdivisions sprawled around Las Vegas, Pheonix, Southern California where prices boomed and then collapsed over 50 %?

Matt in Auck - Thank

Matt in Auck - Thank you for your comment above expressing your views of the performance of the current Minister of Housing, Hon Phil Heatley. I would be most interested in learning of other readers views on his performance to date.

This would assist me enormously for an article I intend to write for publication on interest co nz later this coming week. Thank you.

Hugh Pavletich

Hugh Pavletich - Developers of

Hugh Pavletich -

Developers of Urban Sprawl get wealthy simply by externalising Infrastructure costs to the Tax Payer.

Maybe your next article could Lobby Minister of Housing, Hon Phil Heatley... to make Developers pay upfront for the FULL Infrastructure costs they currently are able externalise to the taxpayer?

Does anyone believe Auckland will

Does anyone believe Auckland will be a better place with more people? Why? What population is the ideal size for Auckland?
That quoted 2.2% annual gain would give the Auckland region 2.4 million by 2040, 4.8 m by 2072. How many taxi drivers, hair dressers and house flippers is too many?

All large cities are fundamentally unsustainable and the bigger they are the worse it gets. Look at the economics of the place now, a massive drain on the rest of the country - consuming way beyond it's share, producing damn all and always with it's hand out for a top up from the rest of us.
Don't be fooled by Auckland's high apparent GDP; it's almost all consumption and debt driven.
I wonder if they could be encouraged to secede?

Like arguments to reduce the

Like arguments to reduce the minimum wage, the argument to increase urban limits does not fundamentally alter wrong institutions. Minimum wages and urban limits are fundamentally harmful and wrong, and should not be relaxed but abolished. If wage rates and land use are understood to be morally and properly the domain of employers/employees and land owners, then neither minimum wages nor urban limits are proper.

Our common law legal system has a rich wealth of resources and protections, rights and remedies, categorised as contract law and tort law, to provide for both employment contracts and land use torts, but these days business law and ethics papers at universities don't even cover the tort of nuisance, so appreciation of it by management students (and others) is lost, and the focus of employment law is on statutes rather than common law.

Socialisation (municipalisation) and central planning of local infrastructure such as roads, streetlights, signage, footpaths, parks, water reticulation, wastewater, stormwater (as well services that can obviously be privately provided and funded by direct charges such as libraries, swimming pools, museums etc.) also stops people thinking about private or cooperative ways of providing for these services. For example, apartment buildings and all their common infrastructure and services such as driveways, lawns, gardens, external lighting, signage, building insurance, lifts and stairways (and even in cases such as retirement villiages: swimming pools, bowling greens, buses) are commonly provided by cooperative or other companies, and funded from levies on apartment owners or occupiers. Yet, outside the gates of these private communities, the same services become municipally owned and operated, and most people don't stop to think that the former could replace the latter.

Oh please, not this stupid

Oh please, not this stupid argument on sprawling this city to double, triple or whatever size in order to get house prices down.... I thought it had finally gone away, after not seeing anything after Hugh's relentless drive to spread his single minded and unsustainable views and data presentations!

Let's just hope this recession is biting a bit harder fast to get prices driven down naturally as they always have in a recession and always will. Hugh Pavletich, who was never even once in any of his comment series interested in discussing any solutions other than sprawl. Every time someone was pushing for discussing other options, such as intensification, better/different planning within existing boundaries and how it would best be achieved, or how other cities in europe have dealt with it successfully, he was saying "I am not an expert on this subject" and copped out!

I sincerely hope we don't get this site flooded with as many articles and comments that achieve nothing because they are starting at the wrong end, that is saying that there is not enough land in Auckland, or anyhwere else. I just ask you to go to TradeMe or realestate.co.nz and tell me how many sections there are for sale right now, and for how long have they been on the market...

It is ridiculous to compare

It is ridiculous to compare Auckland to other cities around the world...If any one notices, it is centralised on a istlmus...so small, block off 2 or 3 roads and the 2 1/2s are isolated...And this exists in 2 places nth and sth of the CBD
It is this geographical nature that is the main issue for our transport problems.
If Auckland was in almost any other country, the manukau harbour would be reclaimed by now.
Not only that either end is built on a narrow island that can only expand Nth and Sth.
Maybe comparable in some ways to New York, built on islands.
So maybe the soln is to do what NY has done, build up...but that goes against the Kiwi mentality.
And is availability of land the real interim problem till the Kiwi mentality eventually changes?..
What about the large areas of 1/4 + acre sections that cant be subdivided simply because of a lack of basic services like stormwater...still on soak holes and drainage that was built in the 1950s and 60s.
In most cases the services/where they exist are obsolete anyway.
What is stopping this infill is the cost to the developer, not only to connect to the current services often 100s of meters away, but having to upgrade the obsolete services if they exist.
If a developer owned large area of these urban areas it would not be an issue, but to developer a section here or there often costs more than the rest of the development.
The argument to make more land available is simply a cheap alternative to enable developers to remain in business.
It is for short term profit that in the long term compounds the already existing issues with transport. No matter what miracles may happen to sort the current transport issue, expansion will result in these miracles always being in catch up mode.
In the 40s 50s and 60s our city planers planed 50/ 60 yrs in advance, this can be seen from strips of vacant land set aside for regional roads that only now have and are being built . Since the 70s planning has been more on the lines till the next local body elections or at most 10 yrs. Sort of a interim patch up at the most And unfortunately this is has been the mentality, not just in urban planing but other areas, financial planning, health , education etc.

An example of this stupidity...when the Auckland airport was built, the areas future runways where also set aside at that time...Then houses where built under where the future flight paths will go. 20 or30 yrs later, at great expense these houses now need to sound proofed, and complaints made about devaluation of these houses.
But the developers who built these houses walked away with nice profits at the time.

http://www.cantrip.org/stupidity.html?seenIEPage=1
The 2nd law is rather interesting.

Mouse, In the US the

Mouse,
In the US the credit boom was nationwide. Yet only 8 States have been really really affected by the "bubble" bursting. (40%+drops compared to 10-15% drops)
Why is that?
Hint- the common denominator was those States practised "Smart Growth" Urban Planning systems.
Its well documented.
That said, dont disagree the Credit boom hasnt been the petrol thrown onto the already burning fire of affordable housing.

Steps - I imagine though,

Steps - I imagine though, in a future not too far from now, that the sound proofing problems of today might not be too much of an issue. People will not be flying as much as they have been in the last 30 years. Air transport is about to become a whole lot more expensive. Welome back to the 70's.

@David Hillary - Example of

@David Hillary - Example of issues caused by short sited urban sprawl development...>

http://www.theage.com.au/national/car-use-driven-by-lack-of-trains-buses...

"Yet, outside the gates of these private communities, the same services become municipally owned and operated, and most people don't stop to think that the former could replace the latter."

Could be privately owned and operated? - Maybe, but the Developer has already taken the money and run... leaving the mess to be cleaned up by the Taxpayer.

Sadly, Private owners and operaters are often too transfixed by reporting on the next Qrtr or Month's P/L to deliver a long term sustainable solutions, that's were Municipalities add value to deliver for Public Good.

More on exposure to Dubai....This

More on exposure to Dubai....This article has a great Photo of Financial Markets being shrouded in uncertainty yesterday...>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/27/british-banks-exposed-dub...

Saud Masud, a real estate analyst with UBS, said Dubai's debt could include huge off-balance sheet liabilities that could "imply a total debt burden well above the $80bn to $90bn markets have estimated so far".

Around around the mulbury bush

Around around the mulbury bush we go. Increasing urban limits will have no effect at all. There is plenty of land available for development. We don't have unafordable housing because of supply constraints or lack of zoned land. We have unafordable housing because of the worldwide property ponzi scheme fueled with printed money and cheap credit from wall street and japan and a population brainwashed into thinking leveraged housing investment is the road to riches. Unfortunatly there are still a few greater fools in NZ who think the ponzi scheme is still running because Ozzy banks have been able to keep pumping. Hopefully we don't copy Japan and attempt to keep our bubble inflated resulting in 17 years of economic decline. At least US and European bubbles have burst, sure it means they have had much more pain than us but it also means they will have a faster recovery while we still have a housing bubble millstone tied to our necks.

Mouse, may I suggest you

Mouse, may I suggest you expand your mind quite a lot, think about society as interactions between suppliers and consumers, and think of housing, and its related services, as consumer products. What kind of housing would consumers like to buy or live in? The answer will be that people building houses for themselves or as an investment will want to do so on sites where the facilities appropriate and beneficial for residing households are in place or assured to be put in place, and that subdivision developers will have to provide this or go out of business. The how of the matter is for developers and investors and households to figure out, whether through trial and error or forethought or whatever. Communities will develop and be developed according to innovation and demand.

Of course the same analysis applies to competing land uses, e.g. industrial, mixed, agricultural, retail etc. just a different set of needs and solutions.

The article you sited is a braindead statement that people use forms of transport that meet there needs and are cost effective, and that cars have some advantages over other forms, and likewise other forms have some advantages over cars. People living where busses are infrequent probably chose to live there because they don't use them anyway, while those living in locations with frequent bus services probably chose to live there because they don't have or don't want to get a car. kinda obvious, no?

Has anyone thought hard about

Has anyone thought hard about the effect of the government's broadband initiative on urban development ? There are business owners now choosing to live in , say, Hawkes Bay but still have there business in Auckland because for them HB is a better place to live. To me this is just the start. It won't be long before some of them realise the whole business can shift because of what BB will offer. Or maybe there staff could live all over the country for some businesses.
I can remember when Auckland had its big blackout and guys with offices in the CBD were forced into temperary office accomodation in the "suburbs" . After a while some of them were saying " Why do we really need to be in the CBD. Things are going OK out here" . I'm sure the same sort of altitude will develop in the future on a larger scale.

Arthur Grimes ay, another Monetarist

Arthur Grimes ay, another Monetarist Puppet(Muppet)
http://www.motu.org.nz/files/docs/people/Arthur_Grimes_CV_2009-04.pdf
deciple of the international financial cirriculum looking to NZ into an urban sinkwell for created credit. He is soliciting the same sort of advice proferred for the development of Dubai. Of course the "sophisticated" among house traders can see great oportunities to get in and out and leave someone with a gearbox full of banana shins.

Auckland is not the economic engine of NZ, it is a debt sinkwell for central banker created credit.

Mouse Ever heard of Reserve

Mouse
Ever heard of Reserve Contributions? They make a mockery of your "take the money and run" smear of developers.
A friend is looking at project in the City. Its 44 Apartments, all 2 beddys of 80 sqm+.
The Council wants $1.25 million is Reserve Contribution.
Kieran
Land which is zoned for Urban use has higher values than land which isnt. Even though the land may be adjacent.
Removing the restriction on supply will only cause prices to drop as more sections become available. Just look at the oversupply in Northland and what is happening to values.
Granted the Credit Boom hasnt helped but the real cause of unaffordable housing is bad Urban Planning creating an artificially high value. The actual cost of building a house hasnt changed much in years. Its Fees and land cost which has gone up.

Ross Says: "Has anyone thought

Ross Says:
"Has anyone thought hard about the effect of the government's broadband initiative on urban development ? There are business owners now choosing to live in , say, Hawkes Bay but still have there business in Auckland because for them HB is a better place to live."

Yeah I have....do they realy need 17 +meg download speeds?
thats a full movie in 5 mins
and on the other side 800k up.

And out of interest all u guys with your own web sites and domain email...
load up you office workstation with open source apachie, regidt a ,com .or .net domain off shore (about $80/3 yrs) opensource mail server....no hosting costs and you are in business.
Good for a web site that gets around 10,000 hits a day noy including search engine bots... no worries about db file backups, full control of detailed stats and no worries about having to ftp in.

But we digress.

I always liked the German

I always liked the German approach of having clear demarcation between the "town" and the "countryside". In a city like Frankfurt you can live in walking distance from both the city centre and the surrounding forest. Of course, 5 or 10km through that forest is a "suburb" town - of course all tied together with a convenient train network. Strong planning laws protect the "wild" areas from being overrun by unbridled development.

I don't think that Germany has suffered crazy house price inflation because of their restrictive zoning practices.

Unlearned lessons from the housing

Unlearned lessons from the housing bubble
Every major country of the world has abundant land in the form of farms and forests, much of which can be converted someday into urban land

Wednesday,17 June, 2009

By Robert J Shiller/New Haven, US

(Robert Shiller is Professor of Economics at Yale University and Chief Economist at MacroMarkets LLC)

"There is a lot of misunderstanding about home prices. Many people all over the world seem to have thought that since we are running out of land in a rapidly growing world economy, the prices of houses and apartments should increase at huge rates.

That misunderstanding encouraged people to buy homes for their investment value "“ and thus was a major cause of the real estate bubbles around the world whose collapse fuelled the current economic crisis. This misunderstanding may also contribute to an increase in home prices again, after the crisis ends. Indeed, some people are already starting to salivate at the speculative possibilities of buying homes in currently depressed markets.

But we do not really have a land shortage. Every major country of the world has abundant land in the form of farms and forests, much of which can be converted someday into urban land. Less than 1% of the earth's land area is densely urbanised, and even in the most populated major countries, the share is less than 10%.

There are often regulatory barriers to converting farmland into urban land, but these barriers tend to be thwarted in the long run if economic incentives to work around them become sufficiently powerful. It becomes increasingly difficult for governments to keep telling their citizens that they can't have an affordable home because of land restrictions.

The price of farmland hasn't grown so fast as to make investors rich. In the United States, the price of agricultural land grew only 0.9% a year in real (inflation-adjusted) terms over the entire twentieth century. Most of the benefit from land for investors has to be from the profit that agribusiness can make from their operations, not just from the appreciation of the price of land.

Despite a huge 21st century boom in cropland prices in the US that parallels the housing boom of the 2000's, the average price of a hectare of cropland was still only $6,800 in 2008, according to the US Department of Agriculture, and one could build 10-20 single-family houses surrounded by comfortable-sized lots on this land, or one could build an apartment building housing 300 people.

Land costs could easily be as low as $20 per person, or less than $0.50 per year over a lifetime. Of course, such land may not be in desirable locations today, but desirable locations can be created by urban planning.

Many people seem to think that the US experience is not generalisable, because the US has so much land relative to its population. Population per square kilometre in 2005 was 31 in the US, compared with 53 in Mexico, 138 in China, 246 in the United Kingdom, 337 in Japan, and 344 in India.

But, to the extent that the products of land (food, timber, ethanol) are traded on world markets, the price of any particular kind of land should be roughly the same everywhere. Farmers will not be able to make a profit operating in some country where land is very expensive, and farmers would give up in those countries unless the price of land fell roughly to world levels, though corrections would have to be made for differing labor costs and other factors.

Shortages of construction materials do not seem to be a reason to expect high home prices, either. For example, in the US, the Engineering News Record Building Cost Index (which is based on prices of labour, concrete, steel, and lumber) has actually fallen relative to consumer prices over the past 30 years. To the extent that there is a world market for these factors of production, the situation should not be entirely different in other countries.

An even more troublesome fallacy is that people tend to confuse price levels with rates of price change. They think that arguments implying that home prices are higher in one country than another are also arguments that the rate of increase in those prices should be higher there.

But, the truth may be just the opposite. Higher home prices in a given country may tend to create conditions for falling home prices there in the future.

The kinds of expectations for real estate prices that have informed public thinking during the recent bubbles were often totally unrealistic. A few years ago Karl Case and I asked random home buyers in US cities undergoing bubbles how much they think the price of their home will rise each year on average over the next ten years. The median answer was sometimes 10% a year.

If one compounds that rate over 10 years, they were expecting an increase of a factor of 2.5, and, if one extrapolates, a 2000-fold increase over the course of a lifetime. Home prices cannot have shown such increases over long time periods, for then no one could afford a home.

The sobering truth is that the current world economic crisis was substantially caused by the collapse of speculative bubbles in real estate (and stock) markets "“ bubbles that were made possible by widespread misunderstandings of the factors influencing prices.

These misunderstandings have not been corrected, which means that the same kinds of speculative dislocations could recur."

LINK to the foregoing article:

LINK to the foregoing article:

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/printArticle.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=2...

It is absolutely beyond me why this incredible common sense and cold hard factual reasoning is not all over the web everywhere this subject is being debated.

Crazy Bill, there is an

Crazy Bill, there is an excellent paper that explains why Germany has not had a crazy housing bubble, and yes, it does have a lot to do with their planning process which is actually pro development rather than anti.

"Bigger, better, faster, more: why some countries plan better than others"

By Oliver Marc Hartwich and Alan Evans

http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/publications/publication.cgi?id=47

ctnz and others who are

ctnz and others who are arguing that house prices are now just coming down naturally as they should, through recession:

Randal O'Toole, in "How Urban Planners Caused the Housing Bubble", analyses markets all over the USA and shows not just that bubbles have occurred where urban limits are strictest, but that the price cycles over time in these markets have gone higher and higher in their "lows" as well as their "highs". He also convincingly demonstrates the increase in the number of markets thus affected as smart growth policies are adopted. He predicts, logically, that future cycles will be more and more damaging unless the problem of lack of affordable new housing is addressed.

It is destructive reasoning to argue that we should rely on recessions to make house prices affordable, when it is structural supply factors both making the prices unaffordable and causing the recessions.

Lastly, those utopians who think

Lastly, those utopians who think that urban limits help to "save the planet" need to read Alain Bertaud's studies that analyse urban density profiles. Natural density, the historical norm, is highest in the centre and lowest at the fringes.

Cities that adopted urban limits early on now display an unnatural profile where there is unexpectedly high density further out from the centre. The reason for this, is that land is driven up in price by a similar factor everywhere; the fact that the fringe land is ten times the price it should be, makes urban centre land also several times more expensive. The result of this is that the people who would normally have been quite happy to live in new higher density developments closer to the centre, simply cannot afford the prices, while people desperately seeking the cheapest possible alternative, find it only in higher density nearer the fringes. One can see this occurring even in NZ urban areas today.

The ironic result of this, is longer average commutes than under "natural growth" scenario.

This is just a rerun of the old, old story where utopian planners think they have the answers and in fact do more damage than good, even regarding their own high flown intentions.

To actually achieve high density living closer to an urban centre, it will be necessary to confiscate land from its owners, or at least confiscate the value increases that result from the urban limit policies; to enable the people that the planners want to live there, to be able to actually afford to do so.

Good luck with that.

Forget about spreading out...here is

Forget about spreading out...here is the answer: http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/09/youll-need-to-sign-for-this...

@David Hillary - "think about

@David Hillary - "think about society as interactions between suppliers and consumers, and think of housing, and its related services, as consumer products."...

I Don't....I tend to think of Land and as being of finite supply and it's value as greater than can be measured by ithe sum of it's cashflow or it's utility potential over my lifetime... therefore very different to me than consumer products.

Sadly, Once productive Land in converted to urban sprawl the cost of Switching back to Productive becomes prohibitive and it's future value impaired.

If Auckland [or other major centres] have reached capacity for urban sprawl given local Govt constrainsts... then tough...it's time for Developers find themselves into a more sustainable business model.

Wally, You may have a

Wally,

You may have a solution for the housing shortage???......or the rubbish disposal.

My daughter has couple of spare containers in the paddocks to store the horse gear and other necessities. Very secure. might be a bit warm in Summer though.

Need somewhere shady...how about around the BEEHIVE or Banks Peninsular.

Have seen other container houses.

I lived in a concrete prefab, just after I was born, these would be probably a lot more water tight.

As I have slept in the back of horse floats, it doesn't matter where you sleep as long as you can see the stars at night.

Those leaky homes and mansions of the greedy and needy will never appeal.

Who needs a million dollar STATE houses, like we pay for. Crazy.

Give me something simple, natural and well built and ALL mine, with a lot of dirt around me. I do not mind good clean dirt, but not dirty grubbing people.

My father in law used to build sensible houses for sensible people, no leaks at the top....like the idiots build to on-sell to the mugs.

He retired in 87 after the last crash. (This will be even bigger and far reaching as we know)

He paid 35% on overdraft for a short while until all show homes eventually sold.

They do not know they are born these days, poor darlings.

They cannot tighten their own belts, but must steal someone else's.

Why play silly burghers for more money than you need....NOT GREED.

Too many crooks in the world today, playing with peoples lives....and you and I know most of em and can spot a wolf in sheep's clothing, with PIGS trotters a mile away.

Trust has to be earned, not BOUGHT.

Business 101. as the Yanks would say. You used to be able to do business with a handshake, now you have to count your fingers, especially if a Finance Company is involved and most BANKS.

Voting is the same, but you cannot PICK those you DEAL with. The deck is stacked.

I repeat myself daily, would you TRUST this lot.

Personally I would use the containers for a deep six solution. Then we could give homes away to the NEEDY, not GREEDY.

Time for a HOLIDAY away from the idiots.

Seems they are not going anywhere. So I must.

All Change...No Change.

Should be fun sitting down

Should be fun sitting down here on the mainland watching Auckland deal with the extra 1.5 million migrants the govt plans to let in. Anyone for a slum tower in the backyard?

Mouse "for the developers to

Mouse
"for the developers to find themselves a more sustainable bus model"

hahaha. I dont think they really care! They just work with the pricing and if its too expensive to sell, they dont do the development.

Its the people who want to buy affordable housing that this system really hurts. Dont you care about them?
That said, David Hilary has a point. You have a lot to learn about how it all works.

"It all sounds like a

"It all sounds like a self destructive virus going thru the land

"Sadly, Once productive Land in converted to urban sprawl the cost of Switching back to Productive becomes prohibitive and it's future value impaired."

That is so true...an has been for 1000s of yrs...and has been the eventual destruction to many a civilisation simply because the viable land can not support it
It goes, simplified, like this
Urban sprawl takes over the productive land...in the 40s and 50s, Manukau was primarily farming and market gardens...they moved out to pukehoe, Pukekhoe is disappearing now, that then leaves the other side of the Bombay hills in a generation or so...
And the same can be said about Hamilton...
And this is our high producing volcanic and peat lands.
Eventually, if there are not any stupid short term thinking people around...and history shows greed out weighs intelegence...urban sprawl may still be stopped before there is no more viable land...BUT the population still increases till what is left of the viable land cant support it anyway.
Its common sense, even thu it could be several generations away.

In case anyone has noticed NZ is not on a huge Continent but and island..well a group of islands...So land is limited.
Then there is the argument "we can import like Japan and Britain" fine but that makes the assumption urban sprawl over the best producing land on Continental counties doesn't happen.

We are our own worst enemies...we initially settled and developed our cities with the best viable land around them....it is this , logical at the time, decision that is self destructive.

What the hell..build build sprawl out, who cares...we will not be around..just our great great grand children...thats if 21/12/2012 or climate change doesnt screw us 1st.

@mouse, well I can only

@mouse, well I can only invite you to think, if you don't have the capacity or willingness to do so, well I guess I have no more to add. Land can be valued even if it is modelled as being of infinite life, I've developed valuation models of it like that. As to the value of different land uses, the present situation around the fringes of artificial urban limits is of greatly higher value in urban than rural use.

I think part of Auckland's

I think part of Auckland's problem is the comment Grimes mentions about it being polycentric and as Steps mentions a lot of that has to do with geography. Capitalising on these separate centres within the larger metro area is the way to go.

And planned density is key - compare for example;

Auckland 1,227/km2
Sydney 2,058/km2
Chicago 4,883/km2

Improving urban density with a focus on walkability and cycle-friendliness, along with an emphasis on creating small but frequent open spaces is the vision I'd have for the city. Density zones within each polycentric 'core' should be well planned to ensure view shafts from one 'core' to the next and beyond to the central city/harbour are maintained.

And financial incentives need to be put in place for good quality, energy efficient medium/high density projects. Perhaps foregoing reserve contributions where a well respected urban design-council approves a particular project would be the way to go.

80m2 apartments are too small to attract families. What Auckland needs are 100-120m2, 3bdm/1.5bath apartments for first homeowners at under $300K.

The complexes should be designed with a particular demographic in mind, for example for a complex designed with young homeowners might have a day care facility on site and a permanent mini-school bus service. For retirees the apartments would be wheelchair friendly and the complex might have a permanent minibus mall/doctor/hospital and meal-to-door services for residents.

We need to start thinking about an oil-scarce future and affordability up as opposed to affordability out. It just makes so much more sense.

Captain Crab, Oh I understand

Captain Crab, Oh I understand it alright... I just don't like it. I rate property developers lower than I rate some of our politicians... At least poliiticians profess to have dignity.

Good to see Kate has

Good to see Kate has a vision for how the city should develop. She's calling for the government to impose her vision on the city. Kate, let me ask you to consider that the larger the number of people involved in something, the more market institutions provide the flexibility and efficiency needed to meet so many diverse and changing needs. By contract, in a small geographic community of, say, 100 to 1000 houses or buildings or properties, the feasibility and desirability of express compromise and cooperation to acheive a shared vision become greater. Thus the city of 1000000 could be made up of a spontaneous order of 1000 to 10000 communities.

perhaps I should clarify the

perhaps I should clarify the two concepts: spontaneous order is the market as a mediation of suppliers and consumers, whereas planned order is coordination of activities and resources by an individual or organisation. The former is most appropritate large scale activities involving large numbers of people for diverse needs and wants, met by diverse suppliers and solutions. The latter is more appropriate for smaller scale activities and smaller numbers of people with more common interests and needs.

The principles are the same as in Catholic social teaching, the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity.

@David Hillary - Valuation models

@David Hillary - Valuation models don't enable infinte growth from finite resources.... There come a point where we need to live within our resources. where is that point?

@ David Hillary - I've

@ David Hillary - I've been thinking... We could cut the demand for Aucklands finite resources if we handed out free condoms at communion in the Auckland Area... thus aleviatling the need for Supply controls... Do you think you could get the Popes authorization?

@mouse: please explain in more

@mouse: please explain in more detail what you are asking.

@mouse: although I'm not a

@mouse: although I'm not a catholic, I can assure you that a) your proposed solution is without merit and b) the pope is against it

@David Hillary - a) Yes,

@David Hillary - a) Yes, there is is some merit in it... b) ah Ha! I did'nt think you were that high up the food chain.

My comments don’t relate so

My comments don't relate so much to this story but to the fact that the Establishment (Govt, Banks and other money lenders) have taken advantage of Bernard's persistence in pushing for land tax over CGT that they are now signalling thro the media that the changes to NZ tax system will pretty much be,
1 increase GST
2 intro property tax
3 reduce top tax to 30%.

This will mean that the average person will pay a lot more to live. While those who live a life a kin to a money trader will be able to carry on there way of obsession with money and getting one over every else.
The fact that the Govt will end up taxing new zealanders income, saving, spending, local body rates and now their home, makes this country pretty queer.

The biggest problem for NZ wether we are in a recession or a boom is the amount of borrowing and lack of saving. I'm amazed that so many intelligent people can't identify this. We need to have tax-free income from saving for all individuals. This would encourage people to save which would reduce the inflation rate, lower interest rate for domestic burrowers and help to hold down the exchange rate of the New Zealand dollar.

But the money lenders would be happy, unfortunately a certain group including the Government (GST) Banks and others is hell bent on making New Zealand a low income, high cost country.

Kate - yes one or

Kate - yes one or two enlightened planners in recent times have advocated for discounts for higher density developments as an incentive to encourage this form of development - I think its a good idea.

But aiming for 100-120 square metre apartments selling for less than 300K is pie in the sky. Build costs for multi level apartments is much higher, as a minimum $2200. Multiply 120 by 2200 equals 264,000. Throw in say 70K for the land for that unit, then a profit margin, then a proportion of the professional design fees, then marketing / sales, then cOuncil fees and contributions (even with discount) etc etc ........

Another thing I think Auckland MUST do is allow for granny flats / secondary flats. They allow it in Manukau, but not Auckland City or North Shore. If even say 10% of Auckland's houses had a granny flat added we'd be tlaking about automatically accommodating another 30-50,000 people. Although some NIMBY people seem to get deeply offended by these flats they are pretty low impact and innocuous

extending urban limits is definitely part of the mix though. To those who think it is a far right dogma, then think again. Infamously left leaning Paul Krugman has written extensively on the impact of planning restrictions on house prices

Yes, the granny flat in-fill

Yes, the granny flat in-fill needs to be acted on. The NIMBYs of today will be the ones wanting to put grandma on the section tomorrow. Indeed most of those NIMBYs are probably b/boomers - and they'll likely be the ones moving into the granny flat in 10-20 years time - with the kids moving into the main house.

I can imagine that 100-120m2 at that price point is 'pie in the sky' - but only under present policy conditions. Le Corbusier is famous for his maxim "architecture or revolution" - and given the housing crisis that our younger generation face these days - I think policy has to change massively to avoid that revolution.

David said, <i>Good to see

David said, Good to see Kate has a vision for how the city should develop. What's the problem, David - are you saying only 'the market' should be allowed to have a vision for the city?

Wow, that's novel.

I think the problem is

I think the problem is three fold and we nee to address all the issues at once to regain affordability in housing.

a. as Hugh's survey and Mr Grimes clearly point out we need to open up new areas for housing development to increase affordability.

b. the use of housing as a tax exempt and even tax recoverable investment needs to stop.

c. a limit borrowing. I agree, the more banks are able to sell money in the form of mortgages, the more debt people will take on board.

As most pm's have vested interest in property portfolio's, lets face it, there is fat chance of anything meaning full happening to lower house prices across the board.

It's also age related, the people over 50yrs old who own most of the property wont vote for a party who takes away there asset class growth and there are allot of people over 50 who know the issues regarding there retirement funds compared to people under 50 who can always borrow more to buy a house.

A few people have slammed Bernards 30% house price fall, but when you add the saving on mortgage interest rates through the OCR savings to the affordability he was not far out, the government will always look out for there own back pocket like this.

Mouse, "We could cut the

Mouse,

"We could cut the demand for Aucklands finite resources if we handed out free condoms at communion in the Auckland Area"¦ thus aleviatling the need for Supply controls"¦ Do you think you could get the Popes authorization?"

Catholic countries do not figure high among most densely popluated in the world. You will find England and holland (bastions of proptestantism) are a lot higher than Spain, Mexico, Italy etc. In asia, Japan is well ahead of the Phillippines. And many of the most poluated countries are the wealthiest (eg Singapore). maybe you should take your small minded bigotry and place it in an appropriate place (i can think of a few if you need some ideas).

no kate, read my posts

no kate, read my posts again: vision is more appropriate for smaller communities

At the top of the

At the top of the comments section, I spelt out clearly the basic (and they are very basic) numbers of a normal affordable city.

Some may like to refer to the United Nations 2007 World Population Report (referred to within my March 2008 paper "Getting performance urban planning in place" - which states quite clearly -

"First, preparing for an urban future requires at a minimum respecting the rights of the poor to the city. As Chapter 3 shows, many policymakers continue to try to prevent urban growth by discouraging rural / urban migration. These attempts to prevent migration are futile, counter-productive and above all wrong - a violation of peoples rights".

At the end of my paper of January this year "Housing Bubbles & Market Sense" I quote Professor Edward Glaeser of Harvard University who basically said that people who engage in anti competitive behavior in the commercial arena are quite rightly jailed.

Those who support the idea that land supply should be strangled and artificially inflated should do the decent thing at least, by moving out of the cities, so that prices are not inflated to allow the poor to buy them. I dont see too many of the urban stranglers offering to leave the cities themselves - or am I missing something?

Misusing the political process to deny people affordable housing really is a very serious matter indeed.

Martin Hawes in the Herald

Martin Hawes in the Herald today:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=1061...

Inflation is the big future risk and people should use fix term mortgage rates and get some of their money out of bank deposits and into share/property trusts

Yikes; http://www.nzherald.co.nz/residential-property/news/artic

Yikes;

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/residential-property/news/article.cfm?c_id=76&...

The number of accommodation supplements paid to people in private sector housing has also jumped by 27 per cent nationally, and by 29 per cent in the Auckland region, in the past 16 months.

And imagine just how many of those rentals are loss making assets even with the government subsidy. So, the taxpayers who don't own rental properties, firstly subsidise the tax break of the rental property owners, and secondly subsidise the loss-making income of their businesses. Ludicrous.

I'd rather see my tax dollars go toward building state-owned housing.

Oh come on Kate..what's the

Oh come on Kate..what's the point of electing fatheads into power if we then say they can't make a bigger bloody mess than the morons we voted out. Go for it Bill...spend and splurge and borrow and blow it..the nations is stuffed and everybugger knows it.

Is continued population growth the

Is continued population growth the answer? - Exponential Growth - maybe we are all short term thinkers or got blinkers on as we are only focused on our own lifetime. The worlds got some very real problems ahead re oil, food, water shortages, combined with population growth to name but a few - maybe NZ should take the lead and close its doors to further migration fueled population growth and focus on long term sustainability and not short term gain (most of which has negative long term disadvantages).

Aucklands become a semi dysfunctional city and will only get worse as we don't have the money to keep up with its population growth.

Motu is right to a degree in regards to expanding the MUL's - however it appears we are all missing the point with the early warning signs that anyone that understands exponential growth can workout.

My bet is that something has to give within the next 20-50 years - we should take the blinkers off and start to plan for the looming shortages (and resulting change to our lifestyle) - "fail to plan plan to fail".

Our Government &amp; Council don't

Our Government & Council don't know what they are doing, we should be hiring some planner's from Dubai or places that are like that to come and sort our our problem's?? Start from scratch and rip the planning apart and start again, why aren't we building up?? and when I mean building up not these flimsy buildings our council have allowed to get built with a 10 year life span??

newby, government and council are

newby, government and council are just doing what they do best - looking after their like voters who own property.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6936028.ece

I don't think Dubai is such a good show case.

<b>28-yr-old</b> : To counter Martin

28-yr-old : To counter Martin Hawe's assertion that inflation is inevitable , are many gambling on deflation &/ or a second wave of sharemarket crashes . A chap on Fox Business News this morning claimed that he had sold all his shares , and shorted the Dow Jones Index . Do'ya reckon he's a gambler , or that he knows " some-thing " . .............. . Hint , his old lady is Meredith Whitney .

@Jimmy - Surely you can

@Jimmy - Surely you can make the connect between...

a) the Demand for Resources and Population Growth and,
b) Population Growth and Contraception...and,
c) Contraception and Catholic Church dogma ?

But then again, It only took 400 odd years for Catholicism to accept the earth is not Flat....
I wonder how long it will take to accept the connect between Contraception [or the lack thereof] and the Demand for Land and Resources?

mouse, You have not answered

mouse,

You have not answered the question, which is that Catholic countries DONT have the highest density problems, so your exclusive singling out of the church seems based on your own bigotry which is common place in small minded agnostic NZ. Looks at the stats, you will actually find wealth and quality of life in the world has increased with population growth. Many minds make great technology. And contrary to popular opinion the Catholic church has been the greatest contributer to advances in society. The church did not deny the earth was flat for 400 years, merely comng out with an official acknowledgement that they erred in their handling of Galileo. If you could get outside of selective historical events and look at the bigger picture you will see that
- science grew out of the Church universties and monasteries (eg Francis bacon, Copernicus etc)
- human rights also grew out of the Church (Vittoria, Aquinas, de las cases)

When we refer to the miracle of the "West" we are referring to the society that grew from WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. These miracles did not come out of islam, greece, aztec, egypt etc. I'm not saying I am 100% in agreement with the church, but I do find selective bigotry a little annoying so feel the need to put you in you place. You owe a lot more to the Church than you realise.

Wow... the topics covered in

Wow... the topics covered in the discussion go everywhere. However, I wager that no one in this comments thread has even been close or been involved in the process of developing land for housing in Auckland.

Grimes is right on the money (so to speak) when he fingers the MUL has a major driver of land price inflation, which has a knock on effect to house price inflation. He doesn't cover the subject of council imposed costs on developers (which are passed on to buyers) such as a vast increased in reserve contributions, which also contribute to land price inflation.

As for intensification, its a hard one to crack. New Zealanders want to live in detached housing, period. The ratio of detached housing (house and land package) to multi-unit (flats/apartments) is about the same as it was 30 years ago. That is what people want and no amount of urban planning or council inspired social engineering has worked to increase intensification. In fact often council's own rules work against intensification.

To the people on this comments list that moan about greedy developers you have to consider the risks that developers are taking. The time required to get planning approvals through and the sheer cost of getting approvals make property development a high risk activity; they have every right to be rewarded for the risks they are taking.

I still have no idea how this comments list turned into a religious debate though...

@ Boris the Fog -

@ Boris the Fog - " still have no idea how this comments list turned into a religious debate though"... sorry about that... It's all 'Big Nose's Fault... clearly he is a little insecure on the subject of contraception.

Arthur Grimes is right. It’s

Arthur Grimes is right.

It's so nice to see the planners smoked out here even thought they won't post under their own names.

Kate wants the government to do low cost housing. Just look at all the Council flats many battery hens have better conditions. One I visited (operated under enlightened Council policy) contained long term retiree residents, non dried out alcoholics and drug abusers and a fellow wearing a dress saving up for a sex change. Water leaked from the bathrooms above to the flats below. That was a Council (government) created vision of community. Totally socially dysfunctional. And these guys want to plan for my life cycle.

The first question I always ask Council planners is where they personally live. Its NEVER is a manner that they propose for the everyone else in their vision of the future. It's in the bush in Titirangi or the Villa on the Shore or in Mt Eden. This wont surprise they are naturally middle class; they are not hypocrites because they are doing their bit by advocating and enforcing density on everyone else.

It's so odd to think they one can make oil last longer by building high carbon footprint highrise concrete and steel buildings (where's the sustainable plantation wood carbon sinking here). Surely we want the price of oil to rise. People aren't so wasteful. Innovation kicks in. Cars will be 25% more efficient with known technology now. We cannot imagine the technical innovation that high priced oil will bring. Peak oil: yes we can.

In short technology will fix the energy problem planners claim they are addressing by offering us a high density highrise future.

ex Rural Banker Says: "Is

ex Rural Banker Says:
"Is continued population growth the answer? "“ Exponential Growth "“ maybe we are all short term thinkers or got blinkers on as we are only focused on our own lifetime. The worlds got some very real problems ahead re oil, food, water shortages, combined with population growth to name but a few "“ maybe NZ should take the lead and close its doors to further migration fueled population growth and focus on long term sustainability and not short term gain (most of which has negative long term disadvantages)."

RB I dont know if you realise it, but if one was to quickly summarise all the studies and thesis on stupidity and the results of stupidity over the last 110 yrs...you have just come to the same conclusion as them.
What you are proposing is something that has worked for 100 of 1000s of yrs and got use to the 21st century...
that sort of thinking went out about the time people no longer had to plan for next seasons crops and cycling of crops, and can visit the local supermarket to buy anything they want anytime they want...

jimmy Says:
"Looks at the stats, you will actually find wealth and quality of life in the world has increased with population growth."
Dead right...ever been to India? or gone into the non tourist sections of any city in the world...where it just happens the majority of the population lives?

Jimmy, with all due respect, you have a very good brain on your shoulders, and seemed to be very well educated to boot....on the other hand you apply your knowledge with very little expansion beyond that....that comes with yrs of experience.

May I suggest, and I suggest to others to..sit down and do some serious reading

http://glennschool.osu.edu/faculty/brown/home/810/Class%20Materials/Ott%...
http://www.cantrip.org/stupidity.html?seenIEPage=1
Prof. Carlo M. Cipolla
http://www.stupidity.net/story2/intro2.htm
James F Welles, Ph.D.

I don’t think Stephenie Meyer

I don't think Stephenie Meyer has sold the rights to Breaking Dawn. there going to be a Breaking Dawn movie? If you are not sure of that, then do you wish there is going to be

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Just wanted to say great job with the blog, today is my first visit here and I've enjoyed reading your posts so far
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While restraint on supply is

While restraint on supply is the key issue in over priced land (as I identified in my report to the Reserve Bank in 1995/96, the other key contributor is compliance costs and none of you mention that.
None of the bloggers however recognize the other contribution to high land costs which is high compliance costs.
And even the Tax Working Group has said that taxes on land are good because land is immobile "“ unlike capital and labour.
Do they realise how heavily we tax the production of new sections?
The following are real figures.
Someone living in Kaiwaka in Northland, trying to create a section on which to build a house for retirement,"¨has to make the following payments to Council before Council will even issue the title:
"¢ a 5% reserve contribution estimate "“ say $10,000."¨
"¢ a roading development contribution "“ $9,795."¨
"¢ a double street crossing; estimate , based on neighbour's costs "“ $30,000."¨
"¢ consent processing fees (just gone up) $2,500."¨
"¢ survey fees; estimate $6,000."¨
"¢ challenge to consent conditions $600.
"¢ Total compliance costs $63,895.
"¢ Planning consultancy fees "“ say $5,000."¨
SAY $69,000.
Planning consultancy fees vary greatly depending on the nature of the application. They may be as low as $3,500. But the Council has chosen this time of recession to increase Reserve Contributions from 5% to 7.5% "“ a fifty percent increase presumably to compensate for the fall in property prices. So this would would raise the reserve contribution to $15,000.
So a new lot in the tiny town of Kaiwaka has to carry AT LEAST $70,000 in compliance costs.
That does not include the cost of the land.
These costs add nothing to the value of the property. Indeed the gross Panzer Tank Division Street Crossing will undoubtedly devalue both properties."¨The charge for challenging these consent conditions is particularly galling because the conditions are based on errors in fact or in law.
In Houston, Texas, a fringe section costs US$30,000 "“ in a city of over five million with the fastest economic growth and highest employment growth rate in the US.
The difference pays for a lot or air tickets and moving costs.
What are we doing to New Zealand families?
Do we want to put yet another tax on land?
Land may not be mobile "“ BUT THE PEOPLE WHO BUY AND OCCUPY LAND CERTAINLY ARE!
NOTE: some people start out to create a new lot to give to their children so they can afford to buy a house."¨Others set out to subdivide around an existing second house to improve their security with the bank.
When I point out these compliance costs have to be paid out of hard cash such plans grind to a rapid halt. They have no plan to sell the new lot so where does the money come from? Once again the kids get locked out of the housing market even when their parents want to help.

Mouse simply ignored my postings.

Mouse simply ignored my postings. The first one alone proves he/she is talking rubbish about population levels driving land prices up.

Of course prices will go up when the authorities run a cap and trade scheme in land, and only permit 3% of it to be built on. (or 15% in the case of some more highly populated countries).

Allowing urban sprawl might have resulted in another 3% of Britain being urbanised, and would have done wonders for housing affordability. In the case of NZ, it would be another 0.2% of NZ.

Hugh Pavletich pointed out somewhere that there is more land in NZ in deer farming than there is in urban development. This is just wrong headedness in every way, morally and economically.

i'v got an error concernning

i'v got an error concernning the video
can everyone else watch it well? :(

I recently came accross your

I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

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Often we forget the little

Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.

www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Small Business owners are largely

Small Business owners are largely forgotten. Thats why I only focus on them. I have experience several members of my family file bankruptcy due to small business failures. I also I suffered through 2 destroyed businesses due to failure however, in my failings I have learned some of the secrets to success. (Who can say they know it all?)

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The underlying outcome has been

The underlying outcome has been huge upsurge in housing prices making these unnafordable for the young people of New Zealand, Nationwide. We are way behind the eight ball on this issue and Quotable Value is retained by the Councils to revalue Nz district by district every three years where huge increased values of land have been cemented in place. That has given Councils the green light to increase property rates of course. We must find a solution for the continuing over priced housing in New Zealand and drop off the point scoring politics and get on with the job at hand. We are a low wage economy with a huge housing annafordabilty issue which escalted over the last seven years. Council fees for Building Costs are exhorbitant also.

Es evidente que hay mucho

Es evidente que hay mucho que saber sobre esto. Creo que hizo algunos buenos puntos en características también. Sigue trabajando, gran sitio !

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