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KiwiBuild home buyers who meet the eligibility criteria will go into a ballot to be able to buy a home

Property
KiwiBuild home buyers who meet the eligibility criteria will go into a ballot to be able to buy a home

By Greg Ninness and Jenée Tibshraeny

Single people earning below $120,000 a year and couples earning below $180,000 a year will be able to buy KiwiBuild homes under the eligibility criteria for the scheme, announced today by Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford.

All eligible potential buyers of the affordable homes being built through the KiwiBuild scheme will have to go into a ballot, so there is an element of luck in who will end up getting the homes.

Other criteria hopeful buyers will have to meet include:

  • They must be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents or ordinarily reside in this country.
  • They must be first home buyers or second chancers - those who are buying a home after a relationship split.
  • They must intend to own and live in the home for at least three years.

Twyford said single people below the $120,000 threshold and couples below $180,000 income threshold were struggling to buy their own homes, especially in high demand areas like Auckland and Queenstown.

"For instance a couple of teachers may have a combined income of between $150,000 and $170,000.

"For a nurse and a police officer earning upwards of $120,000 and for an engineer living alone on $90,000 - a decade ago these families would have been able to afford a home, but they are now locked out of the market," he said.

Twyford said the government intended to provide 1000 KiwiBuild homes in the scheme's first year, ramping up to 5000 a year by 2020 and 10,000 by 2021.

“This is the largest state-backed home building programme in generations,” he noted.

Asked by interest.co.nz why the Government had steered clear of limiting the capital gains KiwiBuild home owners could make on selling their properties, Twyford said: “We don’t expect there’s going to be much capital gain in the market.

“In fact, our entire policy programme is designed to stabilise house prices and squeeze out the capital gain…

“We’ve changed the tax settings, we’re increasing supply, we’re fixing infrastructure financing, freeing up the planning system - all of these things are designed to get the housing market on to a sound footing…

“When people buy these homes, they’re putting up the money, they’re taking the risk, it’s their property. So we don’t want to put in place rules that are too onerous or heavy-handed.”

While people can register their interest in entering a KiwiBuild ballot, the Government notes: “There is a separate ‘pre-qualification’ process to determine whether someone is eligible to buy a KiwiBuild home.

“As we get closer to Kiwibuild homes being available for potential buyers, the KiwiBuild Unit will provide more information about this process.”

More detailed information is available on the KiwiBuild website or in this Registration Eligibility Criteria document.

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94 Comments

-New affordable homes gaining momentum
-Ban imminent including provisions against absentee residents
-Loss fencing
-Chinese capital controls being maintained
-Money printing ending
-Sales volumes tanking
-Prices at best flat and worst decline
-Lots of noise about interest rates (but no real change there)
-Trade war starting (no happy ending...)

All in all I kinda impressed that the usual property Bulls are all so upbeat.

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Kiwibuild is aimed at first home buyers who are looking to buy a modest starter home. I wonder why home ownership rates will continue to fall.

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Reading this article and looking at the income thresholds just highlights how out of control the housing market has become over the last thirty years or so.

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Lets hope that if the govt allows people to import prefabricated Chinese houses that they are nothing like these ones. (Sure, these are not prefabricated, but because of that, in theory they should be even better than prefabricated ones).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopSDJq6w8E

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Finally Mr Twyford has released some details in regard to KiwiBuild!!!!
As “The Man” and Boatman and a few others have been saying, this KiwiBuild is not a goer and never has been.
The so-called affordable homes or boxes that this government have been going on about for the last year is an absolute farce, and If you voted for them on this basis, you have been shafted.
There is going g to be very few people who will want to buy these boxes In Auckland that can afford to service the mortgage, as I have been constantly saying.
You will need to have a decent deposit, be on at least $100k for 30 years and have a spotless credit history which I doubt most have, going by a lot of people who rent.
They are trying to drop the prices in Auckland and so who on earth will want to pay 650k for these boxes if the prices are going to continue to drop???
They are agonner at the next election, and as I have said they are going to be the most despised government of all time, and because of this stupid MMP electoral system we have of being allowed to form a government from 3 low polling parties amalgamating!
Ridiculous.

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@THE MAN 2.......... nice to know that there is at least someone out there who does not think I am a total cynic.

I really wish the Government could do this Kiwibuild thing, I have adult children who need to get onto the property ladder .

Unfortunately, you are quite correct , its simply not going to happen on anything like the scale promised.

As long as the general costs of construction , the administered costs of RMA compliance , Development Contribution levies, a $300 water meter which is charged at $20,000, and the price of land remain at current levels , its a simple fact of life that Kiwibuild cannot be done

It is what it is .

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They will have to do a lot worse to bet National as the most despised government of all time Man.
Q: How do you think we got here?

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Referring to yourself in the third person, nice.

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... the Gummster isn't one to refer to himself in the third person ... no sirrreeeeee , he is not .... but the gist of THE MAN 2's post is bang on ....

This government has lost control ... it's hands off the wheel , as she careens along the super highway of overpromising , and underdelivering ... poor people on incomes up to $ 180 000 qualify for these houses ? .... those poor buggers on a measly $ 180 000 PA are the only ones who can afford them ! ... what a complete shamozzle Taxicinda's mob have become ...

Well ... at least , that's wot Gummy reckons .... he does , more too ...

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Welcome to New Zealand where you if your lucky can win a mortgage for 30 years .... in our instant kiwi competition. Have to earn upwards of 90k

The Booby prize - your neighbours get in for free due to meeting the Winz requirements of being unemployable due to their gang affiliations and p convictions.

Maybe some of your smarts will rub off on them.

Now tell me who the sucker is ?

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Hey I agree, there are two systems (in the same country) effectively working against each other. But for the "booby prize" winner they will have no aspirations for life and have to stay that way. Young people might think "let's get this for free" but their thinking will change. And when they have kids they are gonna have so many regrets and then they still have the rest of their lives to watch themselves and their kids and grandkids lives going down the toilet with what you said, gang affiliations etc For them life is not good.

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This is insane, why limiting people from being eligible based on income? How about those people who are striving to upskill their selves or those who have a second job just to have an extra income.

They don't encourage people to upgrade or strive harder, to earn better. But rather they keep penalizing hard working people by paying more tax but not getting in return.

Don't get me wrong here, I just want an equal rights.

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Ummm... what? The cap it quite high, in fact materially higher than the average income. If you are earning over this amount and can't afford to buy something similar to one of these tiny kiwibuild houses, then you have other problems.

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The scheme is designed to give a leg up to those who don't earn enough to buy a house, and they are expecting demand to significantly exceed supply at the start. Maybe the criteria will open up over the years, but for now rationing based on income seems perfectly understandable.

My household income would qualify for the scheme, but I feel quite capable of providing for myself and don't need the assistance. If you're over the threshold and still feel you need help, perhaps your budgeting is the first place to look?

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I disagree. Assuming these houses are indeed cheaper than the market equivalent, then you may end up hundreds of thousands better off if your income was a bit lower. That’s a bit shit IMO. Why is any income cap needed?

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The goal is to depress wages. Imagine that both you and your partner are on $90,000 per year and just barely qualify, your boss offers you a $5,000 pay rise but you refuse because you hope to own your own home. The guy on $75,000 who was hoping to get to $80,000 might get less because of his worth relative to you. You’ve also dragged down the median pay for someone in your industry.

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You say that, but if you look at this policy in conjunction with the other policies introduced by this government a pattern emerges.
1. Get people to try keep their wage under the kiwibuild threshold so that they can buy a cheap house.
2. Get people to try keep their wage below the families package threshold ($39,500 each) I order to get the $3,120 ($60 x 52) per year of after tax and abatement Best start allowance
3. Increase the abatement rate of Working for families so that you get less of each pay rise. Making the above 2 points that much more attractive (if after abatement and tax your $5,000 pay rise from $39,500 only left you with $2,400, why not take the best start payment instead)
4. Ban gas exploration in Taranaki so that we get an oversupply of workers in the region.
5. Get people to ensure that they don’t earn enough that their dole gets fully abated because then they would lose the winter energy payment.
6. Repeal the lowered tax rates at the bottom end of the pay scale that would have reduced the number of people on over 100% effective marginal tax & abatement so that those individuals are discouraged from working more.

Etc...

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We have looked at it, there's nothing there.

I think you are misunderstanding the cols here. They want to help the people on lower income, they just can't see that their actions make things worse.

There is a difference between being stupid and being evil.

National = Evil
Cols = Stupid

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I guess an evil person would accept a bet to drive close to the edge so as to give the frail a heart attack and leave more resources for themselves whereas a stupid person drives over the edge because she doesn’t know any better?

I heard that the honourable Winston Peters predicted all these down stream effects when he picked a party, wouldn’t that make him evil as opposed to stupid?

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The Coalition of Cultural Marxists lineup is similar to The Lion King. Winnie = Mufasa, Shenzi = H1/H2, Banzai = Roberston, and Ed = Twatford

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Yeah I think idea that the cols and especially labour want to depress wages, is a theory that comes with a free tinfoil hat.

And I don't even like the cols.

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Setting arbitrary income thresholds above which you lose various benefits certainly does not encourage people to try to earn more than those thresholds unless they can jump from just below the threshold to well above it.

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As I stated, I don't like the cols and disagreed with a lot of there decisions, especially lately.

But the cols problem is one of too many cooks, they lack direction and are making decisions on a case by case basis instead of having a overall objective. That is different from an active effort to make us all poor.

The result might be the same, but its due to their inability not some genius plan. And what would the point of suppressing wages be anyway? How do they benefit?

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Those on lower wages tend to vote left.

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You are mixing up correlations vs causation again.

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Tough call to turn down a raise in order to keep your name in what could be a rather large hat for a slightly cheaper house.

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Imagine the headlines if they draw someone from the hat on a $200k+ salary. Would you be happy with your tax dollars subsidising them into their first home? I agree with drawing a line somewhere, as always it sucks if you're slightly above the line.

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There shouldn’t be a subsidy. God damn it, this is about building houses not subsidising them. They need to nip that perception in the bud.

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Exactly.

It's subsidies (both direct and indirect) that have got us into this mess. Only a moron would think that the way to claw our way out of it is with further subsidies..

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Yes agree.
I don’t even like the first home buyer clause either. A not for investment clause is all that’s needed

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Ok, subsidy is (hopefully) the wrong word. Regardless, the Government is putting up money and effort to getting these houses built and while I expect this to drive down prices in general in time, I have no problem with these houses being rationed based on income and therefore helping those who need it more.

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Sorry...

But how is KiwiBuild not a subsidy when it is offering property at arbitrary prices, and giving developers guaranteed sale assurances?

It is both a direct subsidy to FHBs and private enterprise.

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Correct it is a subsidy with the fixed price. Auction would be much more sensible compared to a ballot. This is a capitalist country after all.

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It would be a subsidy if properties were being sold below cost. I’m saying that should not happen and there should be no perception that it is happening. It’s easy to prove, government gives a developer $650,000 for a house, government sells the house for $650,000.

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They can shut the whole subsidy line down by clarifying that people are paying the full cost of their house. The only subsidy is the government working at scale and having a low cost of capital. They can also stress that the way they are doing it is likely to lower build costs for other people - encouraging scale. Finally, they could say that increased supply will reduce house prices but they won’t want to say that because NZers will lose their shit. But that is what will happen.

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For me restrictions on Kiwibuild are a bit pointless.

I’m ok with it only being available to first home buyers but the income limit seems a bit counter productive. Perhaps they can relax the income limit as market demand is satisfied.

Overall, I’m worried that kiwibuild is sliding towards a scheme that provides affordable houses to lucky people versus a scheme that lowers overall cost by boosting supply. If this keeps going we are going to get into all sorts of problems including public perceptions about what the government is trying to do.

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Agree.
It is one thing to take measures to decrease the cost of housing, and increase the supply, which is to the betterment of everyone (devil is in the detail of what the solution is).
It is quite another thing to just build some houses for a select few people. That is just welfare.

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First home buyers is dumb too. There are plenty of people that have had a house at some stage in their lives and for some reason sold it - marriage breakdown, financial troubles, etc. they are locked out of the housing market too.
IMO the only restrictions should be against investors and foreigners, and the houses should be sold at auction to the highest bidder.

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There is a chance for non first home buyers, so long as you are poor enough:

"13. Who are ‘second chancers’?
Second chancers are people who have previously owned a home but who no longer do so, but who now find themselves in a similar financial position as a first home buyer. For instance, a divorcing couple may sell their home in order to separate their finances but this can leave both people with an insufficient deposit to purchase a new home.
Consistent with the KiwiSaver HomeStart grant, a second chancer must not have assets totalling more than 20 percent of the house price cap for existing/older properties in the area they are buying in, which is:
• $120,000 for Auckland
• $100,000 for Hamilton City, Tauranga City, Western Bay of Plenty District, Kapiti Coast District, Porirua City, Upper Hutt City, Hutt City, Wellington City, Nelson City, Tasman District, Waimakariri District, Christchurch City, Selwyn District, Queenstown Lakes District
• $80,000 for the rest of New Zealand."

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This opens the door to a well known scam;
Husband and wife have a house already,
Find a friendly lawyer and "divorce" on paper,
Wifey gets the majority of the familial assets transferred to her,
Poor hubby now meets the asset requirements for a 2nd Chance,
Hubby secures KB house,
Hubby and wifey "get back together" after 3 years (how will KB check on this??) ,
They go laughing all the way with a shiny asset subsidised by the taxpayer.

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At $90,000 each they are paying the same marginal tax rate as trusts. Why not just have a trust “earn” everything over $90,000 so that the household qualifies.

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Q: "Why not just have a trust “earn” everything over $90,000 so that the household qualifies"

A: P.A.Y.E.

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Your employer employs the trust which employs you, I believe it is very common these days

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I'm not saying its not done, I'm saying not everyone has that option.

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Lots and lots of rules - but I still can’t work out why they are needed. In fact this is where a constitution would be good - no government should be allowed to sell anything under market value.

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Welcome to the Social Republic of New Zealand !!
where people can ' BUY ' ( not offered) a shoe box based on a ballet draw , sounds like distribution / allocation of Tents in a refugee Camp .... welcome to the new era of communism under this CoLs !!

How could anyone expect 180K income to buy in high demand areas like Auckland ( >$1M homes) and compete with others who earn twice that number and have saving of 2-300K ... what sort of stupid nonsense is that ?... or is he just used and addicted to moaning and crying ...?

Does this minister has anything useful to tell people other than inflating the emotions of the vulnerables.?? ... this is becoming a bit nauseous really !

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Pity the national party let it get to this eh.

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That's right comrade, those capitalist pigs must pay.

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KiwiBuyld is a total joke. As long as you have bumbling idiots at the council collecting more money the more they slow down progress (consents, land zoning, materials) nothing will change. New Zealand must have the most bureaucrats per capita. There is little reward here for productive people. It's a paradise for real estate agents, lawyers, accountants, sloppy builders, inept council workers and immigrants looking to anchor down for the night before sailing over to Australia.

What this country desperately needs is innovation and accountability. Let us build what we want within recession planes and require mandatory insurance on any sale. If a dwelling is correctly maintained and leaks 20 years later there should be big consequences.

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Register your self/spouse/kids anyway (and provide the kids with an income from the family trust that your are neither trustee nor benificiary of if proof of income is required). The first lot will likely be of higher quality than the rest in order to promote the program.

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Lets face it , a salary of $120k for a first home -buyer is a significant sum of money , and $180k jointly is a very big income .

People at this level would be more inclined to buy a secondhand property anyway . They are likely to get more value for their $

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It really depends. The value of the sections at Unitec is likely to be somewhat higher than the $650,000 price tag if only because the amenity value of even a small (200 sqm) section will likely be about $400,000

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The income limits being so high are a sign that there's something wrong with the property market. In Canada even median income earners can't afford to buy a house. It's a concerning situation and I don't think the Government is tackling the underlying issues.

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The problem is the amount left after taxation. We can not compare our median to theirs because our median income earners have a marginal tax rate of 30% whilst our average income earners have a marginal tax rate of 33%. Canadian median income earners have a 15% marginal rate that is indexed to inflation.

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I agree that the direct comparison cannot be made. They are having difficulties with real world affordability, and as I stated it's concerning. I don't want us to follow Canada as their prices went higher and are falling faster.

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It appears that our local body rates are called taxes over there and seem to count against them but not us?

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It's more likely you've missed including the income tax taken by the provincial level of government in Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

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I think that the income levels are more or less pie in the sky numbers. Any household with that level of income can already afford to buy a house in Auckland, they just might not have the deposit required, which is more about budgeting and saving. A household bringing in 180k has over $2.5k after tax. $600 in rent is about the norm for a reasonable place in a reasonable area (in Auckland). That leaves more than enough income to pay for everything and save at least $1k per week. In 2 years time that is over $100k - during all of which the presumably two income earners will have a reasonable amount accumulated in KiwiSaver as well. Now if you ignore those numbers, and then come down to a household earning $100k or less per annum, it starts to make more sense on the assumption that they have a deposit available. This effectively opens up a level of housing quality that would normally be in the $700k - $900k price range at current prices. I think the big failure is in targeting this to first home buyers. It should really be targeted at getting home owners out of $400k - $600k existing crap boxes and into newer homes, which opens up more segments of the overall market distribution to downward price pressure at both the high and lower ends, sort of one standard deviation from the mean price ranges. In any case, personally, what a cluster truck of a plan. I don't mind the current government, on balance I feel they'll do more good than harm to NZ overall, but my god is KiwiBuild a massive collaboration of retards or what? It's a struggle to find sense in its current design.

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Hey don’t hassle the roskill!

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Nothing wrong with roskill, its the 1970s weatherboard shitboxes with rotting single glazed windows, one power point per room, poor insulation etc that I hate.

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Seriously, I believe many of you have still missed the point!
KiwiBuild is not a subsidising of housing for low income people to get into houses.
What do these 650k houses look like Mr Twyford?????
How big are they, where are they going to be, do they have garages, these are questions that Mr Twyford needs to answer and show us the plans!
No point putting a limit on something that you have no idea what you are buying!! !!
Point is that if you are earning over 100k and have a deposit and clean credit record, then you won’t be wanting to buy these little boxes that will have no capital gain!
Mr Twyford now wants expression of interest for these boxes before they try to get going, but he is going to be left with so much egg on his face!!
Reality is that many on this site have been goi g on about this COL doing more for them than National did, and were expecting to be able to get into their first home.
Would love you to buy a home, but unless you are on in excess of 100k per year and a clean credit record plus 130k saved, you won’t be getting a KiwiBuild home, and don’t think you would want one either when you see the plans!!!!

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Apparently 1100 people have already registered interest.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/105221856/kiwibuild-registrat…

Also you say there will be no capital gain on the kiwibuild houses. I thought you said property always goes up in value. That seems very contrarian to your usual comments.

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Like I said before, register yourself, your spouse & your infant children. If you don’t like the designs once they are released then just withdraw.

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I registered my cat.

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They must "intend" to own and live in the home for at least three years. If what you get has a market value of more (enough to make flipping worthwhile) than you need to pay if you win the ballot. Then this scheme will be rorted. If the dwelling you get is only worth what you paid for it. Then why bother with a ballot.

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So what happens to the normal FHB market when all of them are registered for a Kiwibuild, and are sitting around waiting to see if they "won" a house? It will kill it, that's what. FHB will be thinking "why buy a crappy old house, when I might get lucky and win a brand new one for the same price. Lets wait and see if we get one". Two years later these buyers are still waiting, when they could have already bought something. Vendors will have to watch the market dry up, prices will fall, and then in 2 years existing home prices will be much lower than the Kiwibuild ones, yet the "lucky" FHB will already be locked into over paying for the Kiwibuilds.

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180k a year and don't have your own home.Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

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Greg, could you ask Mr Twyford what happens if a FHB needs to sell before three years are up? Does any capital gain get confiscated? Also what happens if the FHB has put a lot of extra money into the house in the first three years but has to sell? Does that money get lost? And what happens if the FHB has to move out of town for his work and wants to rent the house out in the meanwhile? Does that mean the "intention" to live in that house has been breached? These questions are just for starters.

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3 years isn't long to wait anyway. If they made it 5 years, I think that would have been better in terms of the intents of this policy.

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Dictator, so in the first few hours there has been 1100 registered for KiwiBuild Homes!
They have seen the criteria that they are first home buyers and earn under the 120k threshold or $180k threshold!
Have they got 140k saved.
Have they got a spotless credit history?
Do they meet servicing requirement of approx 700 to $800 per week?
Do they know how big these boxes are?
Do they know what they look like?
Do they know where they are being built?
Are they big enough for them and any children currently and any in the future?

If any of these questions are NO or they don’t like what the KiwiBuild home is then they WILL NOT be buying a KiwiBuild!

Watch this space as the farcical gets worse by the week!

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TM2 translated - I must try registering myself now while relentlessly bashing this to discourage others. YIKES!, I'm competing against 1100 already!

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Why wouldn't you register? It's a zero cost call option. If the strike price is in the money you transact and thank the tax payers for their largesse. If it's on or out of the money, you let it lapse.

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Exactly! Unintended consequences...

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The leader of the coalition (Winston Peters) appears to have indicated that he intended the economic consequences we see now.

If we assume politicians lie about their intentions and look at the effect of the policies that they have put in place in the absence of their stated goals (lies) we can get an idea of what they intend to achieve. Policies that gift the wealthy zero cost call options whilst discouraging the poorer from earning more form a very intriguing story.

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I think the stats are irrelevant, as anyone with an email address can register, as many will be only wanting to know more about it, rather than actually wanting to buy one.

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I see it mentions an asset cap for first home buyers, as well as an income cap. But I can't find what the asset cap is? I can see it for second chancers, and I can see the income cap. But nothing about the asset cap for first home buyers as far as I can see,

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FFS who says that these boxes are subsidised?
The builders will squeeze as many boxes in as they can and be built cheap as they can.
You would be nuts to be buying a mass produced box that there are so many grouped together to make a ghetto.
It ain’t going to happen

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They could be subsidies since Cost, Price and Value are not the same thing.

So if the builder can make a box for 640k sell it for 650k but because the property market is still in a shortage they actually worth 660k.

In this case then the builder gets 10k profit,
and the FHB get subsidies 10k because the paid less than what it is worth.

Otherwise the Tax payer could have sold it and we could have used the 10K for something else.
Probably benefits or union pay rises =)

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Well lawyered there Pragmatist

but its still just semantics,
If the government is buying the house from the builder (which is they are) and selling them below market value then the Tax payer is losing the value of the difference.

What word/s do you want to use?

Bribe - since that can be non-monetary
Charity
Wealth redistribution
Indirect housing wealth fare benefit

Call it what you want is a FHB are getting subsidies indirectly or otherwise. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that, just that its true.

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Than why do they keep taking about the $2b dollars that they are spending?

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Wow the Labour Party must think a lot of the NZ population earn good money .... hahahahaha .... all middle class couples only dream to earn above 180K and I have no doubt single would love to earn over 120K. So this actually does mean .... NO CHANGE to STATUS QUO .... hahahahaha

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