Who owns all the homes? MPs own all the homes: New Zealand's 121 Members of Parliament own at least 292 properties between them

If politicians own so much property imagine the total mortgage exposure - a very good reason to keep a central bank independent of politics as much as is practical.

This makes any sort of Capital Gains Tax or land tax a difficult prospect.

That's one horribly conflicted parliament.

cheers

Bernard

So what are you suggesting Bernard,  that no MPs should have a pecuniary interest in property?

And quite why INTEREST RATES have been forced down to keep the ELITE afloat.

I repeat myself daily.

VESTED INTERESTS DO NOT AN ECONOMY MAKE.

BAILING OUT...the ELITE is not ........................WORKING.

And SHEARER...is as hypocritical as Cullen...................

No small wonder his VOTERS are not WORKING, nor can ever own an over priced house.

Ramped up by a failing system.

No small wonder the elite want inflation.....so the pork can continue.

De-leveraging is rife around the World.

But the FAT CATS here and there are a protected species.

Working the system, they devised, they support, they will NEVER, NEVER, CHANGE.

So now we know why the introduction of a Capital Gains Tax is not a likely scenario, and we can now continue to to invest in property, safe in the knowledge that gains will likely remain tax free . 

Let us all buy houses and rent em to each other.

That way the country will be Super Productive, Super Paid and Super paid up, no need for Kiwisaver.

This goes a long way to explaining why so many MPs seem blind to the affordability issue, paying lip service to it from time to time but not seeming to fully grasp just how expensive and difficult it is for first home buyers, even with record low interest rates.

Jacinda Ardern and Nikki Kaye, who are both young and both based in central Auckland, are two of the few who really understand just how high house prices are.  When even these highly-paid MPs can't afford a house, what chance do those on lower incomes have?

I shudder to think that we might have to wait until their generation (my generation) is in charge before something is done about this. 

i want to know who lives in the point four of a house

Would it be stating the obvious to comment that owning these multiple properties show a lack of interest in PRODUCTIVE investments.

Before anyone suggests that to own a farm is productive, just look at whether for most MP farmers the farm is a residence that becomes a bolt hole with a big capital gain at the end of it.

here i was thinking that the greenies were all pot smoking vegans but it appears that at least five of them are also property moguls.

maybe they need the extra land for growing crops.

Or rather wealthy...may just be part of a wider investment portfolio.

The problem is we have no main industry that doen't run without tax payers money...let alone mnay productive ones!!!

Property - subsidy by WFF and accomodation subs.

Farming -Development expenditure, tax deductibility catergory very broad so can pay limited income tax and collect the capital gain tax free.

Tourism -Local and central Government subsidies via venue and events....conference market dominated by the public sector.

Charities - some people do very well out of Government contracts.

Banking/finance - been cover well here already

I was re-reading bruce Shepards peice on land tax (of which he has some experience). What goes against it is its immediate effects (versus its long-term effects). Ananalogy would be breaking a leg to reset it.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/blogs/stirring-the-pot/3286437/The-ins-and-outs-of-a-land-tax

See the traffic has tripled. I should get a cut of yer capital gains..

We need to improve the political system as it operates at the lowest level (rhetoric/ misinformation).  The govt is ttrying to get rid of public broadcasting (for instance) yet we need public broadcasting where analysis is based on critical thinking (not advertisers preference).

Well well well

Wellington Wellington Wellington

It's pretty damn hard to change the status quo when our venerated leaders have so much invested in it. I would like to think that they aren't consciously avoiding changes to keep their investments buoyant, rather there might be some unconscious influence. But who knows?

The media made a big play of Nat people sending their kids to private school and conflict of interest.

Watch them studiously ignore this elephant in the debating chamber.

With this sort of bias, it is difficult to see how our taxation system is ever likely to be re-balanced to create a level playing field, where productive and export-oriented enterprises can compete fairly with the likes of property speculation.

The country as a whole is the loser from this systemic corruption.  Pity. 

Really, what is the problem if an MP owns any amount of houses ?

Anyone can in NZ. and Isnt that great !

The inference in the article is that MP's owning property has a causal link with high house prices

I disagree. I don't think it infers that MPs owning multiple properties causes high house prices. I think it infers that because MPs own lots of properties, they have a vested interest in maintaining status quo policies that have an inflationary effect on property, rather than supporting things like proper planning reform that will free up housing supply and therefore having the effect of reducing likely capital gains on properties, including those owned by MPs. It's a subtle difference.

Clearly, if MPs were consciously and deliberately not changing policies so that their properties appreciated in value, then that would be acting in self-interest and would be arguably corrupt. However as  stated earlier, it is quite likely that more subtle subconscious influences may be at play. That is, the MPs aren't getting together and coluding, and denying policy change because it suits their interests. Rather, at the subconscious level, in their deliberations and analysis, they know that radical change could undermine their investments.

Don't underestimate the power of the subconscious!!!! 

What % at Treasury are landlords I wonder!

Nah Nah Nah , you have all got this all wrong . Kiwis are benefitting from owning rental property , big time .

Its the most direct way we can benefit  finincailly and profit  from the governments immigration policies and and restriction of land- for-housing- development policies.

There will always be an immigrant to screw over when he lands at Auckland airport and has to rent one of our astromonically expensive houses .

Auckland Coucil's restrictive and rapicious fee rorting behaviour when it comes to land development consents , is just the cherry on top.

As long as it carries on , and there is no political will to change the status quo, it will be very good for us to speculate in property.  

My good friend ChrisJ was good enough to link interest.co.nz readers to the recordings of Tacitus recently, and Tacitus has recorded the very difficulty with this sort of behaviour at 6:16

"Meanwhile a powerful host of accusers fell with sudden fury on the class which systematically increased its wealth by usury in defiance of a law passed by Cæsar the Dictator defining the terms of lending money and of holding estates in Italy, a law long obsolete because the public good is sacrificed to private interest. The curse of usury was indeed of old standing in Rome and a most frequent cause of sedition and discord, and it was therefore repressed even in the early days of a less corrupt morality. First, the Twelve Tables prohibited any one from exacting more than 10 per cent., when, previously, the rate had depended on the caprice of the wealthy. Subsequently, by a bill brought in by the tribunes, interest was reduced to half that amount, and finally compound interest was wholly forbidden. A check too was put by several enactments of the people on evasions which, though continually put down, still, through strange artifices, reappeared. On this occasion, however, Gracchus, the prætor, to whose jurisdiction the inquiry had fallen, felt himself compelled by the number of persons endangered to refer the matter to the Senate. In their dismay the senators, not one of whom was free from similar guilt, threw themselves on the emperor's indulgence. He yielded, and a year and six months were granted, within which every one was to settle his private accounts conformably to the requirements of the law."

"Mortgagee sales have hit record numbers, and landlords are the new victims." herald

What's going on!.....the liars are telling us that property never falls in value...the parasites are offering cheaper credit to entice more idiots into a mortgage...but more 'landlords' are being slaughtered....

Meanwhile in some parts of Auckland..the Asian loot is rushing in to blow the bubble larger...

Keep your eyes open for a govt bailout to save the landlords..(and all the govt property owning landlords too)....look for an increase in the accommodation landlords benefit payout..perhaps an option to capitalise on this handout...anything to prevent the blood splashing on govt landlord leather shoes.

"We must prevent property becoming affordable for most Kiwi families..we must ensure they have to borrow from a parasite...we owe it to ourselves to drive this policy farce...the parasites depend on these policies!."

capitalising and over leveraging on the low interest here in little ole nz is what you would expect.

benefiting from the low interest is a govt beneficiaries dream. that is why houses are so important to a govt beneficiary.

saving your soul, but losing the plot is a savers dream. 

trafficking in high interest is burnhards dream.

It's all a dream an illusion....now.

cheap tricks do not an economy make.

and i never used my capital once.....but that do not change anything.

eu folly, imf folly, ecb folly, bernanke's folly, a flow on effect.

whether ye are short sighted, long sighted, or over ...excited.

read my lips. my capital has stopped flowing.....

FULL STOP.

BYE.

Gee...MPs own 292 properties between them. 

Perhaps they are more intelligent than I thought!

A shorter headline might have been "Turkeys won't vote for Xmas"

Food for thought:

http://smh.domain.com.au/blogs/talking-property/seniors-struggling-to-m…

is NZ property really that strong?

Foreclosures at record highs:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/7070430/Record-mortgagee-sales-near-six-a-day

it's a funny mix at the moment. Residential buildings consents actually dropped in the March quarter, contrary to those Nostradamus's Westpac's prediction of a 5% rise. So the crap supply response is going to minimise any falls. But at the same time unemployment is going up, there will be less job opportunites here in Aus, and some kiwis may even return putting more pressure on jobs in NZ

So I can't see gains overall being any higher than inflation for quite some time

And with great uncertainty in Europe and China - the risks are on the down side rather than the upside

Information and statistics regarding foreign ownership of Australian property is currently unavailable due to censorship, blanking and redacting by the Federal Government^[11]

In December 2008, the federal government introduced legislation relaxing rules for foreign buyers of Australian property. According to FIRB (Foreign Investment Review Board) data released in August 2009, foreign investment in Australian real estate had increased by more than 30% year to date. One agent said that "overseas investors buy them to land bank, not to rent them out. The houses just sit vacant because they are after capital growth."^[12]

In April 2010, the government announced amendments to policies to "ensure that foreign non-residents can only invest in Australian real estate if that investment adds to the housing stock, and that investments by temporary residents in established properties are only for their use whilst they live in Australia."^[13][14]

Under the rules, temporary residents and foreign students will be:

• Screened by the Foreign Investment Review Board to determine if they will be allowed to buy a property.
• Forced to sell property when they leave Australia.
• Punished if they do not sell by a government-ordered sale plus confiscation of any capital gain.
• Required to build on vacant land within two years of purchase to stop "land banking".

Failure to do this would also lead to a government-ordered sale.^[15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_property_bubble

This is a bit like NZ's equivalent of the Common Agricultural Policy - a white elephant in the room that no one dares to train crosshairs on.

The sooner investment properties are seperated by some unique tax law from dwellinghouses and commercial/industrial properties that make the later much more attractive the better.

Paying in excess of 50% of your income in rent should be  a crime.. and there seems to be alot of these real estate companies that act for absantee landlords that are almost a cartel.

At a time when housing stocks are at shortages this should be sending us warning signs that our economy is somehow broken...??? 

Only in ancient Rome did we see property ownership become the burden that seperated classes... will we see this occour in NZ as well?

I think the health of children is already a pre-eminiat indicator of this..

Don't buy an investment property... invest in a business.

Then we all might be able to afford a modest house at not Auckland prices.

If asset sales boost share holding practices then I endorse it...