Selling below valuation in Auckland? Okay rather suspicious but then again I have seen properties sell in Papakura either AT valuation level or well above it. It depends on the circumstances the new owner might have.

Also going to put the comment made over at DimPost that caught my attention as well:

We’re not actually in the middle of a property boom, are we, Danyl? We’re in the middle of a housing crisis and the Government needs to sell houses in order to free up some cash for their plans to build a lot more houses in order to dampen down demand. Work & Income are paying out record amounts of accommodation supplements because of high rents, so surely part of the solution is to make sure that low income families are able to buy their first home with the help of Government incentives. I also think that we can’t rule out the possibility of implementing rent controls. So, currently when you rent a house, the landlord can legally only put the rent up by a certain percentage each year. Yet if you move out and a new tenant comes in, the rent can go up exponentially. This means that a small wooden house in Christchurch can be rented out for $360 per week by a couple that have been there for ten years and when their renewal comes around in November their rent will be increased to $380 per week; their friends who have just moved in to an identical property across the road are paying $480 per week and when they have their renewal in one years’ time their rent will be going up to $505 per week. This is a loophole in the system that needs to change. People say that Warrant of Fitness checks on all rental properties wouldn’t work because rents would go up but the fact of the matter is that rents are already capped in New Zealand for existing tenants and the other loophole that could see rents rise, new tenants, simply needs to be closed with the use of a National register of investment properties. This register would also ensure that foreigners couldn’t buy an unlimited amount of investment properties as they can now. Nick Smith was right to assert that, while foreign ownership only makes up around eight percent of the properties in Auckland, in an overheated market this is very detrimental to that market.

Comment by Daniel Lang — June 15, 2015 @ 1:36 pm

The reason for me reblogging this is because when you have a large chunk of your Opposition failing (and heck Labour is quite successful in doing that at the moment and pretty much nothing else) then our democracy is in trouble.

Our democracy relies on both a “strong government,” a “strong opposition,” and “strong cross benches (where a Party acts in a more independent manner siding with both sides depending on the issue).”

If we have a sick opposition at central level it does affect at Local Level such as Auckland Council as well. We have no leverage nor alternative to seek out on prickly issues such as the City Rail Link (which we should just do ourselves any way). This is because there is a lack of central opposition doing its job in both putting a torch under the Government’s backside AND (and this is where the USA has some advantage over us) force more bi-partisan agreements.

But looking at the original blog post in which I am reblogging on it seems Labour the opposition continue to immolate itself and to borrow the dogged phrase from National; not focusing on things that really matter…..

(Bread, butter, work, house, amenity are things that matter to most as absolute priority)