No, nothing to do with the clusterf**k that was Kiwibuild.    I note the increased speculation that the Reserve Bank will shortly announce a 50 point cut in the OCR in an attempt to mitigate the effect of the Coronavirus which has seen our exports to China suffer a big hit along with the tourist industry and education providers … and clearly the worst is yet to come.

So what will that mean for the private housing market.   Simple, the surge in house prices that occurred over the holiday period will inevitably accelerate as mortgages become cheaper.   You add to that the crisis in the rental property market caused by the Government’s inability to understand cause and effect and what you have now is a developing situation that leaves the rhetoric around the housing crisis (so called) in the lead up to the 2017 election standing in its wake.

The ‘Kiwi dream’ of home ownership is becoming a nightmare to be replaced by a new Kiwi dream of somehow lucking out by being granted a social housing tenancy (for life) … although with the waiting list as at 31 December 2019 at 14,869 (up from just 6,182 when this apology for a government took office) it might be a long wait indeed.

Of course Labour might well see this as a win, win in line with their socialist ideals …  killing off private ownership and making people dependent on the State … in their dreams.   Who in their right mind thinks the government (any government) is better at managing a persons life as opposed to the thinking individual making their own informed decisions … answer, go figure.