"We have agreed on banning the purchase of existing homes by foreign buyers," said Ms Ardern
My point is that non-residents will still be able to build new houses. This policy brings New Zealand in line with Australia which already has a similar policy.
The next step would be to require that those that do not meet the rules sell up, which should put a bit of supply into the market and achieve some meaningful price movement.
Another good step would be to finally bring in a decent capital gains tax, ideally charged annually on paper profits at whatever your marginal tax rate is, and with no family home exemptions. Ironically taxing the family home would, in this case, actually make them more affordable by exerting further pressure to move speculators out of the market.
You can't do that in an open, globally connected economy though. As great and beautiful as Thailand is, it is still for the most part a corrupt developing country. You want to hold Australia or NZ, which should be open for business and wants to attract global investment by better protecting investor rights, to a much higher standard.
We want people to invest; we don't want them to break our laws. Their rights (and the penalties that would apply to them) would be laid out under the law, so no problem at all.
Overall the policy is largely ineffective at even slowing price increases.
Thailand and Australia are not comparable markets, sure foreign buyers want access to both markets but Thailand is a corrupt military junta and Australia has a mostly functional court system (but increasing levels of corruption at the top end).
Seems pretty sensible?
[1] "The country’s proposed ban on foreign buyers, which would only apply to non-domiciles" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/25/new-zealand-to...
Just look at Vancouver where incomeless foreign students are buying supermansions.
Also obvious is that increasing demand on one type of housing puts upwards pressure on the prices of other types of housing because they are (in part) substitute goods.
"LABOUR WILL PARTNER WITH THE PRIVATE SECTOR TO BUILD 100,000 AFFORDABLE HOMES
KiwiBuild will deliver 100,000 affordable houses over ten years for first home buyers. Half of these will be built in Auckland. That is a ten-fold increase in the number of affordable houses being built in Auckland each year, from 500 to 5,000."