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Comment by anon9001 | Hacker News Reader

So an American with $2M to invest and a desire to live in NZ can simply invest in equities, bonds, and real estate and become a citizen in 4 years?

And once you're a citizen, you enjoy unlimited social and health benefits indefinitely?

Can someone from NZ tell me why this shouldn't be my retirement plan?

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If you seriously consider enjoying "unlimited" social and health benefits of NZ, you may just retire immediately with $2M in bank and lead more luxurious life in most places in the world no matter if you are 60 or 20 years old.

IIRC $2M is enough to "buy" a Swiss citizenship too, so that kind of money really enables you to live basically anywhere in the world and you need a specific retirement plan only if you want to spend a lot of cash regularly for the rest of your life. Personally I would not even think about working to get paid anymore if I had even $1M, but ofc that's just me and my modest living standards.

Not from NZ, but consider this: do you want to San Francisco-ize (multiply living costs, entrench a landlord caste & create weird incentives for local politics) the place? Because lots of foreign money simply walking into a heretofore sedate local real estate and business ecosystem is how you do that. Cf. Toronto, SF, Paris, London, Munich &c

> Not from NZ [...] sedate local real estate

Clearly! House prices here are very high already. See e.g. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2017/03/new-zealand-hou..., https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/83750475/nz-tops-imfs...

And I am a little hopeful (but doubtful) that might be starting to change. Massive numbers of houses have been consented to be built (especially in the last few years). But just building more probably won't be a permanent solution.

https://www.stats.govt.nz/topics/housing https://www.hud.govt.nz/news-and-resources/statistics-and-re... https://www.imf.org/external/research/housing/index.htm

Auckland already has one of the highest house price:median income ratios in the world.

Alot of people from China / India who get rejected in Australia, will go to NZ to do just that, because once an NZ Citizen, you can live/work in Australia.

Edit: Well maybe not alot, but when I lived in NZ 15 years ago, it was enough that Australia would complain about it.

Australia complains a lot, about many things... ;)

Especially if kiwis are involved :D

Australia retaliated and now it is very hard for kiwis to become citizens of Australia or get the same benefits as citizens or permanent residents.

I think that's two different things tho.

Alot of kiwis were coming to Australia and going on the dole right away. So alot of the benefits only kick in after residing in the country for minimum 1 year. But the benefits still exist.

I was referring to those who were rejected for residency in Australia, gain citizenship in New Zealand, then move to Australia to live/work.

I believe if you were born in New Zealand, its still (relatively) easy to get Citizenship in Australia, but if you weren't born in NZ and have NZ citizenship, it's much harder.

It's actually very hard for Kiwis to get citizenship, because the special category visa that lets them live here permanently isn't actually permanent residency, and so there isn't a path to citizenship.

(Source: Kiwi friend who was trying to get citizenship for himself and his kids who were born here)

Hmmm a few of the kiwis I went to school with all got citizenship.

It changed not long ago.

Ah ok yeah this was like 5-6 years ago. I haven’t lived in Australia for 9 years now so I donno how much has changed. Prob a lot! Lol

> So alot of the benefits only kick in after residing in the country for minimum 1 year.

What benefits? I'm not aware of any benefits Kiwi's arriving post 2001 get, apart from some reciprocal medical care, and some allowances to buy property and so forth. Actual money-for-nothing benefits, not so much.

> I believe if you were born in New Zealand, its still (relatively) easy to get Citizenship in Australia, but if you weren't born in NZ and have NZ citizenship, it's much harder.

Assuming we're talking about the Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189) New Zealand stream [0], then it's easier than for people coming from other countries, but I wouldn't say easy. It's also about AUD$4000 per person.

[0] https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-li...

The dole. I don’t know what you call it in Australia. When you don’t work and government gives you money. It used to be you could apply after landing. But now you need to live in Australia without leaving for 12 months before you can apply.

We also can get the baby bonus. My sister got it when her son was born. That was only 2012 I think. Well after 2001...

We don’t pay for hospital. And Medicare can only be applied for if you stay for 6 months without leaving for any reason.

You can do it for even less in most of EU countries. You just need to get a job or create a company to get a work visa, and then stay for 5 or 6 years, learn some basic language and that's it.

Indeed. Portugal has their Golden Visa which only requires a 500k EUR investment in real estate. You get temporary residency and potential permanent residency or citizenship after 5 years.

It's kind of interesting to dig into. The residency requirements are quite low - 7 days in the first year, 14 days for subsequent 2 year period). So by the 5 year mark, you'd only need to spend 35 days in country.

There are even companies that will find real estate for you, rent it out and guarantee 100% return of capital after 5 years. Turn key solution to EU residency! [1]

[1]https://www.artoncapital.com/global-citizen-programs/portuga...

If it social and health benefits, just relocate to any EU country with a local contract. You would beed a visa, si, but once here you are covered like everyone else.

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