Foreign house buyers: voters want to see the evidence

Phil Twyford said National needed to crack down on speculators, including a ban on non-resident foreigners buying existing houses. Photo / John Borren

Only one in five voters do not support a ban on foreigners buying houses - but most of the others want to see evidence of a problem first.

The question of how much offshore buyers are fueling Auckland's property market has been one of the big political issues of the year and gained momentum after the Weekend Herald's exclusive report in July about Chinese investment.

The Government will begin collecting information on overseas buyers from October, and a Herald-Digipoll survey shows a majority of voters want action if that shows foreigners are having a large impact.

Thirty-two per cent of respondents supported Labour's policy to ban foreigners from buying existing houses, agreeing that foreigners had pushed Auckland prices beyond the reach of ordinary people.

A further 42 per cent would support a ban if there was evidence such buyers were pushing up house prices.

One in five respondents did not support a ban - with 13 per cent citing a lack of evidence.

Of Auckland respondents, only 16 per cent did not support a ban, compared to 22 per cent of voters in the rest of New Zealand.

Phil Twyford, Labour's housing spokesman, said the results showed overwhelming support for the party's policies.

"It is fair enough for people to want to see evidence. That's why we are calling for a publicly searchable register of foreign property ownership - which is the policy in Australia and the United Kingdom.

"The National Government is in denial about this problem."

A spokeswoman for Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith said the results were no surprise, given the high level of publicity over the issue.

"The Government will form future policy on the basis of accurate data, not on polls of people's perceptions or surveys of people's surnames.

"The best advice the Government has is that foreign buyers are not having a significant effect on the Auckland housing market.

"It is worth noting that Australia has a ban on foreign buyers, and that this has had no effect on their high house price inflation."

From October 1, the Government will be able to collect data on how many houses are being sold to non-resident buyers.

Labour says that information should have been gathered long ago, and it reignited the debate on foreign ownership by releasing data which showed nearly 40 per cent of house sales in Auckland went to people with Chinese surnames.

It stood by the data after criticism that the exercise was racist and flawed, but has recently focused criticism on the rate of Auckland building.

Last Monday, Reserve Bank deputy governor Grant Spencer cited data that showed investors accounted for 41 per cent of all market sales in June.

Responding to Mr Spencer's remarks, Mr Twyford did not mention the foreign buyers issue.

Mr Twyford denied the party had shifted in its criticisms, and said National needed to crack down on speculators, including a ban on non-resident foreigners buying existing houses.

"Labour has always had a strong concern over the lack of supply of housing as well, that is why we announced our KiwiBuild policy to build large-scale developments of affordable housing."