Greens plan to lower house prices by 50%

Radio NZ report:

A declaration by the Green Party that Auckland house prices should be deliberately dropped over the longer term has been met with strong resistance from its political ally, Labour.

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei has said prices should be gradually lowered by up to 50 percent over a number of years, in order to avoid a market crash.

Labour leader Andrew Little said such talk was irresponsible.

“It’s not going to happen under the next Labour-led government.

“Our plan is about stabilising house prices by building more affordable homes, and then secondly by taking the overseas speculators out of it by putting restrictions on non-resident foreign buyers.”

Labour and the Greens recently struck a co-operation agreement including a no-surprises policy but Mr Little said Ms Turei had not raised any plan with him, or others in the party, to deliberately push down house prices.

The Greens have clearly violated the agreement. Not off to a good start are they.

As the Greens basically oppose making more land available for housing in Auckland (they only want to build up, not out), they of course have no chance of stopping house price inflation, let alone reducing it.

But I look forward to them campaigning that they want to reduce the worth of Auckland homeowners by a total $300 billion or so.