Financial disincentives against owning rental properties would be axed by National. Photo / Michael Craig
Financial disincentives against owning rental properties would be axed by National. Photo / Michael Craig
National is attacking the Government’s financial disincentives aimed at landlords and says it plans to fix housing under a multi-pronged strategy including a build-to-rent push.
Chris Bishop, National’s housing spokesman, addressed today’s NZ Property Conference at Auckland’s Aotea Centre where he also announced further build-to-rent details.
Financial disincentives against owningrental properties would be axed by National but Bishop said if elected in October, National would also boost build-to-rent.
“Mum and dad landlords aren’t the enemy. They’re an important part of our housing market and the sooner the Government stops demonising them, the better.
“We will be stopping Labour’s war on landlords and improving the rental market. We’ve already announced we will bring back interest deductibility for rental properties and restore the brightline test back to two years,” he said.
He said Labour had “launched a war on landlords by removing interest as a legitimate expense for rental property owners and extending the brightline test to 10 years.”
He added: “They were warned it would put pressure on rents and the social housing waitlist, but they did it anyway.”
Leonie Freeman welcomed Bishop's announcement.
Bishop said National would fix the housing crisis by freeing up more land for new housing, getting more infrastructure funding and finance, making resource consents cheaper and faster, encouraging a more competitive building materials market and reversing financial moves against landlords.
On more land, he said: “The big driver of house price growth in recent decades is limited land supply. We are not a small country, but government fiat has artificially constrained where and how we can build.”
On infrastructure funding and financing, he said National would “make sure insufficient infrastructure isn’t a barrier to new housing. We hear the calls of local government that housing density and housing growth has to come with the right infrastructure. There’s a role for central government here alongside councils’ existing tools. And our transport planning system has to facilitate growth, not stop it.”
On making resource consents cheaper and faster, Bishop said: “I am deeply sceptical that Labour’s current Resource Management Act reforms are going to make it easier to get a consent for a house and actually get it built.
“The reforms are falling apart and about the only person who likes them are David Parker and Tony Randerson KC.”
Randerson led a panel the Government established to review the resource management system.
Kiwi Property is developing these build-to-rent apartments at Sylvia Park.
“Why is it so hard to get building materials that are authorised for use in countries with similar environments and standards, like Canada and the European Union, available in New Zealand?” Bishop added.
“My colleague Tim van de Molen, our spokesperson for building and construction, is working hard on this area, alongside our building consent system. To say it is broken would be kind. We need urgent reform.”
But Bishop did back Labour’s reintroduction of interest deductibility for build-to-rent developments, which he said was “hilariously described as a tax break”
The MP announced that if National were elected on October 14 it would quickly move to implement other changes required to unlock build-to-rent in New Zealand.
Changes are in the member’s bill in his name: the Boost Build to Rent Housing Bill.
The Overseas Investment Act would be reformed to give greater certainty for institutional investors to invest in the market.
“It is nuts that retirement homes and student accommodations have an easier ride through the act than build-to-rent developments and National would ensure they were treated the same,” he said.
Tax treatment of build-to-rent developments would also be changed.
Currently such projects are treated for tax purposes as residential building and fall outside depreciation deductions available to all commercial buildings that were reintroduced in 2021, he said.
“Our change will ensure that build-to-rent developments are eligible for depreciation deductions,” Bishop said.
Property Council members had told him that conservatively, a minimum of 25,000 additional homes could be built in the next 10 years if government settings were right, he said.
“That’s a lot of Kiwis with warm, quality, professionally managed roofs over their heads. And it would make a substantive difference to solving our housing crisis,” Bishop said.
Leonie Freeman, Property Council chief executive, welcomed the build-to-rent push saying it was an exciting housing solution.
She said build-to-rent changes would be welcome.
“Build-to-rent will transform the experience of renting in New Zealand. Property Council research shows that our members stand poised to deliver over 25,000 such homes in the next decade, with the right policy settings, changes to the OIA and allowing depreciation the key to unlocking this growth,” she said.
