2020 Election: National Promises Tax Exemptions for Real Estate Investors; Labor calls it ‘reckless’

National leader Judith Collins promises real estate investors a tax break by reducing the bright line test to two years in an effort to make more Kiwis homeowners.

If elected, National would also pass emergency legislation in its first 100 days to force councils to free up land for 30 years of urban development and sell state homes to occupants.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern criticized the policy, saying it would “take us back to the 1990s” and move New Zealand away from handing out homes to first-time home buyers and building state houses.

“To suggest that in response to New Zealand’s housing problems selling state houses I think is absolutely wrong,” Ardern said.

National’s housing policy promises to allow social tenants to purchase the homes in which they lived under a rent-to-own or shared equity scheme.

Collins promised to build as many state houses as they would sell to tenants under the scheme and would continue the current government’s work stream to reduce the waiting list for social housing.

National would also take the bright line test, the number of years someone has to own a property before they can sell it without profit being taxed, to two years after the Labor-led government increased it to five. years.

Collins said “all it did was make it harder for people to be drawn to owning.”

And it would repeal the protective rules that prevent people who manage rental properties at a loss from claiming this as a tax break against their other income.

Reducing the bright line test and repealing the fencing rules would cost $ 480 million.

When asked if the time was right to give real estate investors tax breaks, Collins said, “You know what? Now is the right time for more people to provide houses for people to rent.”

Collins said he didn’t want people’s equity to be affected by a decline in home prices, but he wanted them to be more affordable.

Without a drop in prices or a rise in wages, Collins said his plan to make homes more affordable was to build more houses that would make them cheaper, especially for first-time home buyers.

The key to building more was repealing the Resource Management Act, which both National and Labor have promised, as that would allow the consent process to go much faster.

Ideally, Collins said he would like home prices to stabilize across the country as they had in Christchurch.

There, the median home price of $ 461,000 was 5.6 times median income, compared to Auckland’s median home price of $ 830,000 which is 8.6 times median income, according to the 16th Annual Survey of Demographia International Housing Affordability.

After the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, the then national government required the 30 years of planned growth to be zoned for housing immediately in response to the threat of a sharp escalation in house prices.

Collins said they would do this again across the country by passing emergency legislation to force councils to clear that land for more housing.

It would also incentivize landowners to sell or develop their land because a change in zoning would mean their rates would go up, he said.

Collins announced the housing policy in an empty section in a Special Housing Area in Papakura.

“Sadly, the dream of homeownership has faded further under the Labor-led government, which is turning New Zealand into a nation of tenants. National will fix this.”

Additionally, National’s housing spokesperson Jacqui Dean said they would “simplify” the Healthy Homes regulations and repeal the recently passed “unwieldy” rental regulations to make it easier for landlords to comply with them.

“This will prevent good owners from leaving the market due to cost, lowering the cost of rents and ensuring that there are enough rental properties on the market to meet demand,” Dean said.

But the Labor Party responded with Housing Minister Megan Woods, calling the policy “reckless” and “half-hearted” that would only benefit property speculators.

That would put more pressure on home prices and push home ownership further out of reach for many New Zealanders, he said.

“National’s proposals to build consent drag us back into the multi-million dollar saga of leaking homes during the Wild West deregulation of the 1990s, and will leave homeowners at the h

ook. She is reckless and irresponsible. “

Collins started her day in Auckland on the campaign trail with the Newstalk ZB Leaders Breakfast, where she announced that her party would review the Auckland Council if elected.

Mike Hosking’s first question in the two-hour interview was whether Collins was politicizing his Christianity, after being photographed praying at St Thomas Church in Auckland yesterday, before casting an early vote.

Collins said she was not and that she had been a Christian all her life.

“By chance we were voting in a church … the minister said, ‘Would you like to come and pray?’ … I did not invite the media.

“It just happened that he was in a church … He wasn’t going to turn it down.