Quote Originally Posted by cammo View Post
The Auckland housing market ( and rest of nz will follow ) is primarily due to New Zealand being viewed by foreign immigrants as safe, safe for kids , reasonably affordable housing relative to the world and your commuting distance. ...
True, NZ is good for wealthy immigrants who already have a good wad of cash to buy a house and manage to outbid locals relying on local income levels.

Immigrants also get an tax exemption not available to locals. Income from overseas investments or pensions can be exempt from New Zealand tax for their first four years of living here. Locals with foreign income have to pay local tax on their foreign income. Is that fair? Perhaps immigrants with overseas income should not be allowed to buy local houses during that four year transitional period unless they elect to pay NZ tax on their foreign income. Maybe during that four year period, if they want to buy housing, immigrants should only be allowed to build or buy new houses?

As for NZ being safe...true in some respects (accident rate on NZ roads notwithstanding) but manual workers in NZ work places (for example just look at standards at forestry, mines and quarries) have a greater chance of meeting an accident than in other "Developed" countries included Australia, UK and EU. However there again, many of the wealthy immigrants, who can out-bid existing locals to buy housing, would probably not be affected by such workplaces.