{"id":238379,"date":"2018-04-17T09:09:31","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T07:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=238379"},"modified":"2018-04-17T09:09:31","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T07:09:31","slug":"big-blow-to-south-africans-looking-to-settle-in-new-zealand-and-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/238379\/big-blow-to-south-africans-looking-to-settle-in-new-zealand-and-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Big blow to South Africans looking to settle in New Zealand and Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has criticised New Zealand\u2019s \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d ban on home sales to foreigners, saying it\u2019s unlikely to improve housing affordability.<\/p>\n

In the statement<\/a> <\/strong>released on Tuesday morning (17 April), the IMF said that the\u00a0measure is unlikely to be temporary or targeted, and that foreign buyers seem to have played a minor role in New Zealand\u2019s residential real estate markets recently.<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg<\/a><\/strong>, proposed changes to the Overseas Investment Act, which the government says will bring New Zealand into line with neighbouring Australia, will classify residential land as \u201csensitive,\u201d meaning non-residents or non-citizens can\u2019t purchase existing dwellings without the consent of the Overseas Investment Office.<\/p>\n

While non-resident foreigners will be allowed to invest in new construction, they will be forced to sell once the homes are built.<\/p>\n

In-line with Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alongside the\u00a0proposed changes to the Overseas Investment Act, New Zealand’s new Labour-led government has pledged to fix the nation\u2019s housing crisis with a raft of measures, including a ban on foreign speculators buying residential property, removal of tax distortions and an ambitious building program.<\/p>\n

This follows a number of reforms<\/a> <\/strong>announced by Australia in 2017, which included more difficult citizenship tests as well as the\u00a0scrapping of the country\u2019s popular temporary work visa\u00a0systems.<\/p>\n

The new requirements to gain citizenship into the country will now require candidates to be permanent residents for at least four years (as opposed to\u00a0the previous one-year requirement).<\/p>\n

In addition, applicants must be competent English speakers, must show a job record and prove they have integrated into the local community.<\/p>\n

At the same time Australia\u00a0reduced the amount of jobs which would be eligible for a temporary visa by over 200 occupations.<\/p>\n

According to ABC<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Australia accepts up to 190,000 permanent migrants each year \u2014 most of them skilled \u2014 but former prime minister Tony Abbott wants that number halved to help lower the cost of living and reduce pressure on infrastructure.<\/p>\n

This is in contrast to a report by Australia’s Department of Home affairs which found cutting immigration\u00a0would have far-reaching consequences for the economy, including “significantly lowering GDP and GDP per person than would otherwise be the case “.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0Here\u2019s how South Africa\u2019s take home pay compares to other countries<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has criticised New Zealand\u2019s \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d action towards foreigners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":219917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-238379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238379"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238463,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238379\/revisions\/238463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}