Government is planning to tweak<\/a> directions to Auckland Council over Plan Change 120, which zone for up to two million houses to be built in the city, mainly through intensification, over the coming decades. It would be extremely unlikely that all two million actually got built, but the city\u2019s property market has struggled from a lack of confidence since the crash and National\u2019s Auckland MPs are grumpy about intensification of the areas they represent.<\/p>\nBishop pushed back on that critique, saying: \u201cI think a lot of National supporters do like our focus on housing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the two million figure had become an \u201cunfair lightning rod for criticism\u201d. <\/p>\n
Bishop said he began work on the proposed tweaks in December \u201cto make it more politically sustainable\u201d.<\/p>\n
He was gathering with fellow National MPs at his party\u2019s caucus retreat in Christchurch.<\/p>\n
![\"Finance]()
Finance Minister Nicola Willis says buyers should have confidence. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Other MPs gave different responses. <\/p>\n
Asked whether Aucklanders thinking of buying a house should have confidence, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said \u201cyes, absolutely\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am delighted that under our Government, the number of first-home buyers has increased significantly, that is a good sign,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of what we need for people to feel confident about the future is a sense that they can have a stake in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should buy a house in Auckland because this is a country with great prospects where you can have a great life, provide awesome opportunities for your children and having a housing asset often enhances the security that people feel about that future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Willis agreed with Bishop about affordability.<\/p>\n
\u201cFundamentally, we are a Government that wants to see housing [be] more affordable and we recognise that will require more homes in Auckland and we need to have planning rules that will permit that,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, we have a balance to strike about how that occurs.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Epsom]()
Epsom MP Paul Goldsmith said buyers should “absolutely” have confidence. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray<\/p>\n
Paul Goldsmith, who contests the Epsom electorate for National \u2013 a focal point for opposition to Plan Change 120, said, when asked whether Auckland home buyers should have confidence in the market, said \u201cabsolutely!\u201d <\/p>\n
Asked whether they should be worried about a further 10% crash, Goldsmith, began to say \u201cno\u201d, before correcting himself and saying, \u201cwell, we\u2019re doing everything we can to have a strong economy, but ultimately I\u2019m not going to comment on house prices\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor generations of Kiwis, buying their own home has been a core part of creating a life for their family and a great financial asset,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"North]()
North Shore MP Simon Watts. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
North Shore MP Simon Watts said buyers should \u201cabsolutely\u201d have confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re seeing it in my electorate in the North Shore, [there are] no issues in regards to appetite around that, obviously the challenges around the broader economy are getting better and the signals are looking more positive as we come into the new year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watts offered some support for Bishop\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of the challenges that I hear within my constituency, particularly from those that are entering into the market, is that they want to be able to buy their first home, they want to be able to do so in a manner which is affordable to meet their means, and that\u2019s been a challenge over over a number of decades,\u201d Watts said.<\/p>\n
He said there needed to be \u201cbalance\u201d from the plan change.<\/p>\n
Asked whether a further 10% drop would concern him, Watts said he would not speculate what an appropriate price should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asked whether a buyer, concerned about another 10% drop, should hold off buying, Bishop said: \u201cI\u2019m not going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9055,3050,9526,665,51,3013,3237,2199,7230,2950,124,3549,79428,25808,44185,266,305,10053,3339,225,6722,17318,34589,3556,111,43,139,69,193,1523,4762,12937,142747,6122,5659,3271,313,14905,14443],"class_list":["post-243472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-9055","tag-absolutely","tag-another","tag-around","tag-auckland","tag-but","tag-buyers","tag-city","tag-coalition","tag-confidence","tag-could","tag-crash","tag-densification","tag-divided","tag-enter","tag-government","tag-have","tag-house","tag-housing","tag-market","tag-minister","tag-mps","tag-mulls","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-other","tag-over","tag-party","tag-prices","tag-rewrite","tag-rules","tag-say","tag-should","tag-super","tag-whether","tag-wont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}