From nitpicky councils to no-cause evictions: Four housing voices on what this election’s housing policies get right and what they leave out

New Zealand’s housing problems are still front of mind for New Zealanders, coming in as the fifth most pressing issue for the public in a recent Ipsos poll. And the people working closest to it say this election’s housing policies still leave big holes with little help for off-site construction, no real fix for rental standards, and councils that still make building slower and costlier. 

We asked four people working across the sector what the parties have got right and what they’ve missed. And party policies are listed at the bottom of this story. 

Matt Ball of New Zealand Property Investors Federation (NZPIF) 

Ball said the biggest issues in housing were local government and consistent rules.

"The most consistent complaint from property investors, developers around the motu is that councils make it unnecessarily harder and more expensive to build homes. They are not talking about necessary rules and regulation, but more of a nitpicky, can't do, say no attitude that adds cost and time. 

And on rules, Ball said see-sawing rule changes, "especially around taxation, are not helping long-term investment decisions, which is important in the rental sector." 

"There is more political agreement on the supply-side now, which is positive, but not on how the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) should work, nor on how the rental sector should be taxed."

Do any of the current housing policies address that adequately? 

Ball said the current government had done a lot of work to try to address the planning/local government issue, through Resource Management Act reform, proposed local government reform and the incentives for growth fund.

"While there appears to be a sort of consensus on the policies needed to make it easier, faster and cheaper to build houses between the coalition, Labour and possibly Opportunity, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are the wild cards, creating significant uncertainty," said Ball.

"Their housing policies will have the effect of driving people out of providing private residential rentals. It would be beneficial to the housing sector to have a more formal agreement on housing supply policy, as the parties have done with infrastructure."

Ball said there was a clear left/right divide between tax and the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) "which look hard to bridge." 

"One area that politicians on the left need to think hard about is tax. All of their housing-related tax policies are aimed a problem which no longer exists, now that the supply problem is being addressed. All of their tax policies (capital gains tax, land tax, interest denial) will put up the cost of providing rental property, forcing rents up and/or forcing people out of the sector."

Where's the policy gaps?

The biggest gap was that Labour had not released a policy on the rental sector or possible changes to the RTA. Ball said there were good policies on solar, but they don't "make it more attractive to invest in solar, batteries, energy efficiency etc in the rental sector." 

"Opportunity comes closest, but still doesn't fully overcome the 'split-incentive problem' - the landlord has to pay, but the tenant gets all the benefit."

Ball also thought there needed to be more funding of the Tenancy Tribunal, due to delays in hearings. 

"The TT is actually doing a lot of good work to improve things, but there's only so much they can do within existing resources."

Wooden framework of a new residential building under construction. Image source: 123rf.com

Nick Maarhuis, founder of manufactured housing startup QVM Homes

Maarhuis said the core issue remained around high house prices versus incomes that was "driven by a structural shortage of homes as our population has grown."

"Layered on top are high power bills - particularly impacting low-income households, where cold, damp and mouldy homes are making people sick."

If any of the policies addressed that issue adequately, Maarhuis said that the recent planning and red-tape reforms had made good progress toward lowering future land costs, "however construction labour productivity remains largely unaddressed across the major parties for this election."

"The growing focus on residential solar across several party platforms is a major positive to address energy costs; rapid deployment of well-funded programmes would improve future household budgets and health."

The gaps

He said many of the policies were just tinkering at the edges, "with adding or removing taxes, but these won't move the needle on the fundamental need to radically increase housing supply, in an inefficient, skilled-labour-constrained industry."

"The clearest gap in the current policy landscape is support for scaling off-site construction, to build more homes with less labour."

He said Australia was ramping up their industry, and at a minimum, New Zealand could secure significant growth through:

• A clear, aggregated, national pipeline of social housing, public estate and civil infrastructure work, so the industry can confidently hire, train, invest, and scale capacity.
• Targeted support/funding for off-site manufactured housing companies to achieve BuiltReady certification (the framework exists to certify house factories, but uptake is zero so far, due to high establishment costs).

Luke Somervell, president of Renters United

Somervell said the biggest issue was the cost of rent.

Renters United surveyed 3000 renters, with results suggesting almost 80% were paying rent equal to 30% of their income, with some paying 50% or more. The other was "there's just not enough homes being built."

Do any policies address that?

"Labour's got some good stuff with building more social housing," he said. "That's important not just for building more homes, but also to improve the bargaining power of renters, because if you've got an alternative to the private market, then that means that it's not just fully on property managers and landlords to sort of dictate prices."

"Opportunity's got some good stuff there.... building more housing, increasing the supply, which is good because supply very much is the driver of rents, we are encouraged to see that. We just say to Opportunity that you can build more homes and also build better renters' rights, and we're disappointed to see that there's no mention there of repealing no cause evictions."

Somervell said there were gaps on improving renters' rights.

"It seems strange to me that we we haven't really invested in mediation services for people to have that chat with their landlord and hopefully resolve issues in a timely fashion, as opposed to going straight to the Tenancy Tribunal."

"We've seen nothing in terms of a property manager's regulation, and regulation is probably not even the right word. It would just be standards, to be honest. The people who are doing the right thing aren't recognised because the crooks and the cowboys who are out there are just ruining it for everyone."

He said here also needed to be a landlord and property manager register, "because I think it's only fair that renters should know who they're renting off."

Marlon Drake, the lead community organiser of Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga Tāmaki Makaurau (an alliance of 37 organisations in Auckland that speak on issues such as housing and homelessness).

Drake said the biggest issue was that there was "far less public housing than we need, and there is far too little in the construction pipeline."

"The housing market is only one part of the housing system," Drake said. "The very ideological near-total reliance on a broken market approach is a kind of political madness, and it’s led to a housing system out of balance." 

"We need to invest comprehensively in the wider housing system; public housing, community housing, council housing, and affordable rentals. Until we do this, we will not solve the housing crisis which has very sadly become part of the fabric of this country."

Drake said in Auckland, housing had become a multi-level debt trap.

"A young person can expect to enter a high-cost rental, paying off a landlord's mortgage, before moving from rental to rental, paying off other people’s massive debts. During this period they’re less able to contribute to the local economy, save up, or live a decent life."

Do any of the current housing policies address that adequately?

Drake said Labour had "a good start with its policy of 6000 public houses over four years." He said that level was "a reasonable starting point to mobilize the construction sector and eat a chunk of the social housing wait list."

"Will it be transformative? Maybe not for the whole housing system. But for 6000 people and families, and all the people building those houses, yes, and it’s a good start for reorienting the system around public housing construction."

He said the Greens were "thinking big" when it came to public housing. "And truth be told 'tens of thousands' is in the vicinity of how many public houses we would need to build to truly address the housing crisis, meet the needs of the social housing wait list, and the many who are not on the waitlist but in real need."

"There’s the question of how it’s paid for, who will build it, where are the bricks from, and it’s the Greens job to answer those questions."

He was "intrigued by Opportunity’s government financing for affordable and social housing, in particular because of the inclusion of council housing," and said National's Chris Bishop "made a commitment to 3000 public houses over three years in Auckland over the last term and appears to have kept to his commitment."

"I think it’d show vision and leadership to lay out a similar target for the next three years, and keep up the good work of building those houses for people in need!"

And on what was missing from the policy line up - "The demand for senior housing is going to skyrocket in the coming years, and I think this is impending challenge is broadly missing in policy."

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Property policies on the table this election:

Labour Party

1. Capital Gains Tax - 28% tax on any profit made after July 2027 when a commercial or residential property (excluding the family home) is sold. (No profit made before July 2027 to be taxed). 
2. Remove upfront costs for solar with Government-backed finance, kickstart subsidies, plug-in options for renters and a community battery fund for neighbourhoods.
3. Keep interest deductibility for landlords.
4. 6000 additional social housing places over four years.
5. Raise the Crown guarantee for Community Housing Funding Agency (CHFA) Social Bonds.

National Party

1. Widen access to 5% deposit home loans by extending the First Home Loan income cap to $300,000, and apply the income cap to all applicants.
2. Abolish the blanket ban on minimum car parking requirements.
3. Working with Auckland Council through the Auckland Deal to align housing, infrastructure and economic growth.
4. Home Energy Fund - central government, council-backed financing platform offering long-term loans for households to invest in solar, batteries, insulation and other energy resilience measures.
5. Enable electrification in the new planning system.
6. Ringfence 20% of places to seniors housing from the Housing Flexible Fund.
7. Extend the rules around granny flats, and apply it to tiny homes on wheels.

A composite image of Housing Minister Chris Bishop and New Zealand houses. Source: 123rf.com

Green Party

1. Rent controls that limit rent increases to whichever is lower of inflation and average wage increases.
2. Require all rental tenancies to be offered as long-term or permanent tenancies.
3. Establishing a rental warrant of fitness system.
4. Creating a register for landlords and property managers.
5. Build tens of thousands of new public homes, significantly increase accessible public housing stock and fund more papakāinga to be built on whenua Māori.
6. Strengthen the Healthy Homes Standards.
7. Expand support such as housing first, transitional and supported housing services.
8. Establishing a right to housing in legislation that requires the State to ensure all New Zealanders are adequately housed.
9. Ensure all government agencies with responsibility for housing are fully responsive to Māori housing priorities, including establishing a co-governance model at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and Kāinga Ora.
10. Investigate capping the number of houses that may be bought by an individual, private company, or family estate, and by introducing a value uplift levy.

Read the full policy document here.

Greens housing spokesperson Tamatha Paul. Image source: Mandy Te.

New Zealand First 

1. Social housing for citizens first.
2. Development of a 30-year population plan to coordinate immigration, housing and infrastructure planning.
3. Require fast-track housing developers to detail infrastructure needed or if it exists, is funded, and can be delivered, and make the Minister for Housing responsible for housing project referral decisions. 

ACT

1. Abolish loss ring-fencing for rental properties.
2. Allow households to export more power where the network has room.
3. Households can sell power to different providers from the one they buy electricity from, or through local businesses and community energy schemes.
4. Exclude "purely spiritual and religious effects" from consenting.

Opportunity Party

1. 1.75% annual tax to the value of land. Exemptions may apply to farmers and retirees.
2. Implement 10 "simple, nationally consistent" planning zones.
3. Create a national pre-approval system for proven prefabricated and modular building methods.
4. Update housing laws to make it easier to build a wider mix of homes.
5. Expand the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme to cover eligible rentals, and extend it to double glazing, solar and electrification
6. Refund GST to councils on new builds that meet strong environmental standards.
7. Raise the minimum Healthy Homes Standards
8. Require all new builds to be wired to accommodate EV charging and solar.
9. Give councils, community housing providers, iwi and trusted developers direct access to low-cost government finance when they deliver affordable or social housing.
10. Let landowners defer the land value tax for up to two years while their land is under development.

Read the full policy document here.

Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong. Image source: Mandy Te

Te Pāti Māori

1. Build 2,000 homes on ancestral Māori land within four years.
2. Implement a stamp duty of 5% on residential sales, excluding first home buyers for homes under $1 million.
3. Allocate 50 percent of all new social housing to Māori.
4. Implement a land banking tax of 33%.
5. End all sales of freehold land to offshore foreign interests.
6. Introduce a vacant house tax (2% annually applied to capital value of homes vacant for more than three months in a year).
7. Repeal interest deductibility.
8. Enact universal rent control.
9. Repeal no-cause evictions.

10. Increase funding for sustaining tenancies (service for tenants who are at risk of losing their home).

    Read the full policy document here.