Property bill reveals migrant divide

Pleas for tweaks to the proposed ban on non-residents buying homes are pouring into Parliament.

By Friday, nearly 300 had been logged on the Parliamentary website, some from people who identify themselves as migrants and are appalled by what has happened to housing affordability since they arrived.

Although some submitters opposed the proposed bans, many would support it, if there were tweaks to protect the interests of ‘‘residents’’ who did not fit the ‘‘ordinarily resident in New Zealand’’ definition in the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill.

Larry Zhou said the property market was over-priced, and overseas buyers were one of the reasons. ‘‘They have capital to buy and sell or rent out to make profit without paying taxes which is unfair to most local people who cannot afford just a place to live.’’

That was leaving working-class people as third-class citizens, he said.

But his pragmatic request to Parliament was to delay the introduction of the ban for a year or two so as not to crash the construction sector, and then remove the ban once KiwiBuild started to pump new homes into the market.

He also supported a capital gains tax.

Chengying Jiang said Chinese investors prevented from buying properties in their own country under government regulations were looking overseas.

‘‘Many Chinese people are very very rich! They can easily buy the entire NZ without any help from bank! If we open to them, even we build one million new houses are not sufficient.’’

As it is worded, the proposed ban would interfere with ordinary people going about their lives, some submitters said.

Johnny Wang said: ‘‘As a New Zealand permanent resident working overseas, I would rather say treating us like a foreigner is totally unacceptable.’’

‘‘I have been always thinking New Zealand as a home to me, therefore sending my hard-earned money back home is something most people would do.

‘‘Shall we be treated like foreigners simply because we are working overseas and bringing money back to New Zealand? Investing in property is kind of insurance policy for myself that I need to be sure I have some place to stay when I am back in town with my family.’’

Jessie Zhu said construction of homes with foreign capital should still be allowed.

‘‘Only allow foreigners to buy new houses, not second-hand houses,’’ she said.

Currently, the proposed law envisions houses built with foreign capital being sold to New Zealand permanent residents or citizens on completion.

Glyn Treasure urged the Government to reject suggestions of exempting multimillion-dollar lifestyle homes in places such as Wanaka and Queenstown. There’s been an outcry by millionaires worried their properties would lose value if they could sell them only to people ordinarily resident in New Zealand.

Treasure said exempting such homes meant excluding the possibility of affordable housing being built on the large areas of land they occupied.

If the Government were to grant a millionaires’ exemption, it should limit the acreage of land these homes could occupy, Treasure said.

‘‘Let’s suggest 2-5 acres, a size large enough for a very large home.’’

Feng Di Gui said many people with residency rights had left New Zealand and rented out properties to pay the mortgage. ‘‘This situation is very unfair for people who live in New Zealand long term but can’t afford to buy property.’’

When she came to New Zealand with her daughter 18 years ago, a three-bedroom home in Glenfield, Auckland, cost $180,000. The price now was $1 million.

Given many people could not get into this ‘‘outrageous’’ market, she urged the Government to regulate rents.