When the OECD this week rated New Zealand houses the "least affordable in the developed world", the Prime Minister laughed off talk of a crisis. I was surprised he didn't trot out the old chestnut about how the Chinese word for "crisis" is made up of the characters for "danger" and "opportunity".
It is etymologically spurious, but beloved by high-rollers, carpetbaggers and dangerous opportunists of all stripes. And as an experienced, successful money-trader, our preternaturally relaxed PM surely knows one man's crisis is another's killing.
But New Zealanders are not alone in worrying about the mounting cost of all this profit. The Guardian's Deborah Orr writes from London: "For some time now ... our houses have been earning more than we do." And James Surowiecki, explaining in the New Yorker Vancouver's stratospheric real-estate, describes "a torrent of capital from wealthy people in emerging markets" that is massively inflating prices in a handful of global "hedge cities".
This bubbly boom isn't just an Auckland issue. If New Zealand is a family, then Auckland is the dad who's popped down to the pokies with the pay packet.
Our Government insists that a) fly-by buyers aren't part of the problem and b) it doesn't need any numbers to know this. Anyone who presses the point is accused of xenophobia. But who's really running scared? This week, the Herald featured Ye Tun Oo, a Burmese refugee who settled in Hamilton two years ago. He and his wife have learned English - their small son is fully bilingual - and both are getting tertiary degrees.
