March 22, 2022
Councils not flagging ghost houses as problem
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The Prime Minister says taxing ghost houses won’t solve the housing crisis.
Waipareira chief executive John Tamihere wants the Government to follow the example of places like Vancouver and Ireland, where taxing houses left empty led to sharp increases in properties returning to the rental market.
But Jacinda Ardern says councils have told the Government the number of vacant properties doesn’t warrant this approach.
“The feedback I’ve had is that’s not the major contributing factor to undersupply, that they don’t see it as something that would necessarily solve the housing issues they may be facing. On the flip side, they talked about planning issues and covenants and a range of other issues they saw as problematic. So we have asked about it, but no one has confirmed it’s a major, widespread problem,” she says.
At the last census, there were about 200,000 untenanted houses, including 40,000 in Tāmaki Makaurau and 5000 in Tauranga.