Thursday news in brief

Self-interest accusations for property owning MPs

Property owning MPs have been accused of allowing their own interests to blinker policy making in relation to the housing market, following this year’s release of The Register of Pecuniary Interests.

The Register which, among other things, reveals how many properties and businesses MPs own, showed that 76 out of 118 MPs have an interest in two or more properties. Of those, 51 declared an interest in three or more.

The four MPs with the biggest property holdings were all from the National Party. They were, Economic Development Minister Nathan Guy (18), Justice Minister Amy Adams (8), Social Development Minister Anne Tolley (8) and list MP Parmjeet Parmar (7).

In response, Green Party co-leader James Shaw and ACT Party leader David Seymour, neither of whom own any properties at all, both suggested that MPs levels of property ownership makes them self-interested in not changing relevant policy settings.

Read more: Two thirds of MPs are investors 

IMF weighs in on housing market

New Zealand’s booming housing market is a downside risk for the economy, according to the IMF’s final report on the country’s economic health.

It said that tighter macroprudential policies, higher interest rates, lower rates of net migration, and increasing housing supply should help moderate house price inflation and stabilise household debt vulnerabilities in the medium term.

But it also recommended the inclusion of debt-to-income ratios in the Reserve Bank’s macro prudential tool kit and the introduction of new housing tax measures aimed at reducing incentives for leveraged property investments.

Finance Minister Stephen Joyce and the Reserve Bank welcomed the IMF’s report, but economic commentator Michael Reddell said it doesn’t mention that the house price issue is a matter of regulatory failure and that little or nothing has been done to fix the problems.

Read more: DTIs should be in RBNZ toolkit – IMF

Auckland rents set to rise

Growing numbers of Auckland investors feel that rents are too low and many are planning to increase their rents, the latest Crockers rental market research reveals.

While 53% of those surveyed thought rents were fairly priced, the number of investors who feel that rents are below a fair price has gone up from 30% in October 2015 to 34% in April 2017. 

Over half (57%) of the investors surveyed plan to increase rents in the next six months. Of those 21% were looking to up rents by 1-2%, 18% were looking at rise of 3-4% and 18% were planning an increase of 5%+.

A number of factors were prompting the move towards rent increases. These included local rates, insurance and maintenance costs, and rising interest rates.

Read more: Auckland rental market under pressure