What you need to know about the Green Party's proposed rental changes
What you need to know about the Green Party's proposed rental changes
The Green Party have launched their pre-election housing policy with promises to give everyone in New Zealand a healthy home to live in.
The Greens are looking to introduce changes to the rental market to "give everyone in New Zealand a healthy home to live in".
oooo so close Greens, so close.
This still does nothing to curb speculation on the housing market which is driving out of control prices and inflation.
The costs for housing improvements will be easily carried by the conglomerates owning tens or hundreds of houses, but small investors with one or two properties may be forced to sell because they won't be able to afford to be compliant, thus providing more stock for the large whales to buy, completing the straight line of more wealth to the already wealthy.
I see it's been offset by the basic income there, so you're appealing to the desperate lower class, while screwing over the middle to feed the top.
Should we have healthy homes? Yes. But shouldn't the goal be to have less people renting and more people owning?
One policy can't do everything, and this is at least better than other platforms. At least it incentives improving housing stock, which the current system does not. Of course we still desperately need a capitol gains/wealth tax and a reform of our tax brackets to being them out of the 90s.
But shouldn’t the goal be to have less people renting and more people owning?
Should it? If housing was structured a little different so owning a house wasn't partaking in speculation but the house was simply a place live, and rental laws allowed reasonable use of that property by tenants, and there was ample housing supply, then is there a compelling reason for us to push for everyone to own a house? What wellbeing measurement would this help?
Owning a house (or having a significant piece of the mortgage paid off) gives you a safety net. It's dormant capital, something you can use to borrow against for much cheaper loans, something you can hand down to your kids, and something you can rely on during retirement years.
The measurement might be called 'financial stability' or financial freedom etc.
Having access to low interest loans is something that renters don't have.
This all seems pretty cool to me. When we came to NZ from The Netherlands ten years ago we were very worried to see how the rental market works. Luckily we could buy something quickly. In NL it works so much better.
Can you provide some insights on the differences? I'm curious to hear what else we could improve.
Quality of houses was the first one. Double glazing and insulation have been standard since 1980. So weird to come here to see houses without insulation or double glazing.
Tenants have way more rights, e.g. as a landlord, you can't just decide to sell the house when you have tenants. And there are just more houses available. Density of housing is high, not like NZ where most houses are detached.
At this point I feel like there's nothing I need to know about the green party. There's no way I could vote for them.
I have issues with the Green's leadership and naive infighting, but this policy could improve our housing stock, help kerb the cost of living crisis, and potentially stabilise our insanely overinflated housing market. All sorely necessary.
Because of this proposal or other reasons?