Hi John,

Today, we announced the next steps in our plan to tackle the housing crisis. I wanted to give you a quick update on what this includes, and how it will help more Kiwis get into homes.

New Zealand’s housing crisis has been decades in the making, and there’s no silver bullet or quick fix. It’s an issue that’ll take time to turn around, but we’re getting on with the job.

Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to improve housing in New Zealand, including by banning overseas buyers, building more state homes, and passing laws to keep rentals warmer and drier.

Now we’ve announced a package of urgent and long term changes that will increase housing supply, relieve pressure on the market and make it easier for first home buyers.

With this housing package, we are:

• Removing barriers holding up the building of new homes. We’re launching a $3.8 billion Housing Acceleration Fund, which will speed up the pace and scale of house building and jumpstart developments by funding the vital infrastructure like pipes and transport links needed for new housing.
• Incentivising investment in new builds, which will help drive demand and ensure more houses are being built.
• Making it easier for first home buyers to get into a property, by lifting the income caps on the First Home Loan and First Home Grant programmes so more people can access this support.
• Helping to tip the balance in favour of first home buyers by extending the bright-line test from five years to 10 years, and by closing a long-standing tax loophole that benefits property speculators.
• Making sure we have the skilled workforce we need to build more houses, by extending our Apprenticeship Boost payment, which has already enabled businesses to take on 21,000 apprentices.

You can read more about our housing package here.

During the campaign we made the promise to continue to take meaningful action on housing, and this is the next step.

There’s no simple, single answer for solving the housing crisis, but together, the measures we’ve announced will make a real difference. These policies will help more Kiwis get into their first home, boost the number of houses being built in New Zealand, and over time, ease the pressure on our housing market.

I’ll be back in touch soon with another update on our Government’s progress. In the meantime, you can read more about today’s housing package here.

Thanks,

Grant Robertson