NZ becoming billionaires' holiday home, Greens say

The cost of housing is turning New Zealand into a "holiday home for billionaires", the Green Party said today.

MP Sue Bradford said today foreign speculators were stealing the dreams of thousands of young and less well-off New Zealanders.

She said they could not compete in a market artificially inflated by wealthy overseas-based investors who were buying up land and houses.

"The Green Party believes it is clearly time for the Government to investigate the option of introducing a capital gains tax on all but the family home," she said.

"The Government should also be encouraging home ownership by increasing the stock of public housing. A larger pool of state houses will mean that owning private rentals becomes a less attractive option for investors."

Ms Bradford said this would help to soften "the almost impossibly high cost of entering the home ownership market".

The Government acknowledged last week that home ownership rates were dropping and launched a free advice service for people wanting to buy a house.

It said home ownership had gone down from 75 per cent in 1991 to 65 per cent today.

Ms Bradford said the home ownership rate for people earning less than $40,000 a year had decreased by 21 per cent.

- NZPA