“..Auckland’s land price explosion in the past decade is a scandal and a disaster for New Zealand’s economy ..
.. and for a group of people who have effectively been locked out of the dream of home ownership in New Zealand’s biggest city.
There is no one villain and no single policy that created this scandal, but it is a scandal.
Auckland section prices tripled to around $302,000 between mid-2000 and mid-2007, Real Estate Institute figures show.
This boom created the biggest shift in wealth in the history of New Zealand and is largely an untold story.
Most people believe there were genuinely good and unfixable reasons for this explosion, but this boom was entirely avoidable and can be reversed.
The first myth is there is only a limited supply of land in Auckland and the surge in immigration after September 2001 meant it was inevitable land prices would rise.
Auckland actually has plenty of land available within its urban limits and on its fringes.
The problem is the enforcement of the Metropolitan Urban Limit (MUL).
The inability of regional and city councils to free up land for housing has allowed an explosion in values..”
go to source/story>>Bernard Hickey: Locked out of land – Business – NZ Herald News
