National promises to let under-30s raid their KiwiSavers for rental bonds
National promises to let under-30s raid their KiwiSavers for rental bonds
18 comments
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In effect more wealth transfer from renters to the pockets of landlords, this time direct from their retirement or first house deposit savings. It's all national are here to do.
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To be fair, it's a bond, so in many cases the landlord won't get it back (although obviously they often do take the bond, and not necessarily for good reason).
But it does seem like a strange policy. Recognising that the rental marked is fucked for young people, but the solution is to take money away from young people's retirement savings rather than actually fix the underlying problems. I guess middle NZ might see it as National as doing something about the rental situation for their kids... but otherwise seems like something Labour/Greens could target as a really out of touch policy.
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I always lose my bond and I never damage the house. Its always $1500 of cleaning or some bullshit.
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Yeah it's the first part of what you said. Anyone with experience renting in NZ as a young person will know how common dodgy landlords dubiously claiming bonds are.
On your second point, it's not so strange if you recognise national are out for the minority of NZers that benefit from our status quo fucked housing situation. Their policy is extremely constrained by this fact (Labour too, but less so imo).
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The reason why the Australian Superenuation scheme (what Kiwisaver should be) has been so successful is because it can't be raided.
These clowns have no idea! They clearly don't understand compounding interest. How could they possibly lead the country?
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They understand it alright, they just care about renters and want those gains for their base.
This will help keep rents high because as they keep rising, putting larger amounts down up front as a bond will otherwise become more of a barrier. Same type of barrier as a house deposit but this is apparently where we're at now. Depressing
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Well this is probably their worst (announced) policy so far....but the election is still months away, so I'm sure they'll come up with something.
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It's on brand, win win for landlords
18 comments
When someone says "common sense" or "no brainer" (etc.) what they actually mean it they don't want anyone thinking too hard about it and finding the defects/problem/lie.
Some landlords seem to think that the bond is theirs and use any excuse to claw it "back" from the tenancy tribunal (assuming they lodged it) at the end of a tenancy.
Other landlords seem to think that the bond is there to fund the depreciation of chattels due to normal wear, conveniently misunderstanding what depreciation is.
Bonds are already far too high. The limit, from memory, is four weeks' rent. Which would be OK if rents weren't over inflated (rent is approximately proportional to the equivalent of mortgage interest, though no rent drop when during record low interest rates!).
So, yeah, this is a thinly veiled exercise in transferring (future) KiwiSaver balances to (present) landlords.
I wasn't sure where I stood on this until I read your comment. Yep, I fully agree. This is a bad idea.