Promises or foundations? What our Housing Compass says about the parties' housing plans, and how to fix them.
 | Author: Kieran Trass Head of Research, Staircase. Property cycle analyst and author of five books on the New Zealand market. |
Every party says it will fix housing. With the election a week away, we ran all seven parties’ housing plans through our Housing Compass.
The Compass asks three questions of any policy: what is it trying to achieve, what else could it affect, and what will change if it does not work? It treats housing as one connected system, so each policy is judged on how it fits with the rest. The eight parts it looks at are listed at the end.
Two scores for every party
We looked at each party two ways. The first view scores only the new promises made for this election. The second adds the existing laws and programmes each party has said it will keep. Think of it as judging a builder on the quote, then on the house already standing.
Scoring is only half the job. For each finding below we also set out the adjustments that would lift the score. Most are small design changes, not new ideas: a carve-out here, a review date there. None of them requires a party to abandon what it is trying to do.
Five things stood out
Nobody gets top marks
Across seven parties and eight areas of the housing system, no plan earns a Strong pass anywhere. Every package is strong in one or two places and silent or weak in others.
National and ACT focus on the rules for building and lending. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori focus on public housing and renters. Opportunity has the broadest building toolkit, but its land tax is the centrepiece of its offer.
The gaps matter because housing is a system. A plan that frees up land but ignores who funds the pipes, or protects renters but ignores who owns the rentals, pushes the problem from one part of the system to another. It is like fixing a leaking tap by turning up the water pressure.
What would fix it
Cover the whole pipeline. Every plan should say how land, infrastructure, building, finance and rentals fit together, even if it acts on only some of them.
Borrow the best bits. Coalition talks are the chance to combine the strongest pieces: Opportunity's national approval for factory-built homes, Labour's Crown guarantee for community housing lenders, National's consenting changes and NZ First's test that the pipes and roads exist before homes are approved.
Almost no plan has brakes
Our toughest test asks a simple question: if a policy is not working, what changes automatically? For most plans the answer is nothing. It is a car with an accelerator and no brake pedal.
Only two rules qualify, and both are narrow. NZ First would strip fast-track priority from housing projects not lodged by the end of 2028. Labour would build three public homes for every one sold through its rent-to-buy scheme. Neither applies to the parties' bigger levers: capital gains tax, rent caps, land tax, landlord tax relief or low-deposit lending.
What would fix it
A review date on every major lever. A rent cap, land tax or landlord tax change should come with a set review, for example after two years, with the results published.
Triggers, not just reviews. Name the warning sign and the response in advance. If rental listings fall by a set amount, the rent cap pauses for new builds. If low-deposit lending grows faster than a set limit, the income cap is tightened.
Publish the test. A short consequences statement for each policy: what it aims to do, what could go wrong, and how we will know.
National looks weak on promises and strong on foundations
On new promises alone, National scores poorly. That is because most of its housing agenda is already law: zoning for growth, fast-track consents, building rule changes, payments to councils for each new home consented, and restored interest deductions for landlords. Count those and National moves from no passes to five.
The opposite applies to the opposition parties. Their plans are mostly promises, and apart from Labour on interest deductions, none has said which existing reforms it would keep. Voters and investors are left guessing which rules survive a change of government. Neither view is the whole story, which is why we show both.
Even National's foundations have cracks. Councils are paid when a home is consented, not when it is built. Development levies, which make new housing pay for its own pipes and roads, do not start until 2029.
What would fix it
Opposition parties: say what stays. A simple keep, change or repeal list for the existing housing reforms would give builders and lenders the certainty they need to keep projects moving through the election.
National: pay councils for homes built. Split council payments between the consent and the finished home, so councils are rewarded for homes people can live in.
Bring the levies forward. The longer new housing waits for a fair way to pay for its infrastructure, the longer councils have reason to slow it down.
Landlords are where the parties split
About one in three households rents. That makes the question of who owns the rentals, and whether they will keep owning them, one of the most important in housing.
The Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity all add costs or caps for landlords, through a 2% cap on rent rises, universal rent control or a 1.75% yearly tax on land. None says who provides the rental homes if investors sell faster than new public homes are built. That is like pulling a leg off a table before the new one arrives.
ACT and National go the other way and ease landlords' costs. But ACT's relief, letting landlords offset rental losses against other income, applies to existing homes as well as new ones, at a cost rising to about $300 million a year. Because it covers existing homes too, much of that money is likely to support homes that already exist rather than add new ones. Labour sits in between. It keeps interest deductions, but its 28% capital gains tax has no carve-out for new builds, and it bans no-cause evictions.
What would fix it
The common fix is to treat new rental homes differently from existing ones. A new build adds a home; a resale only changes the owner. Our suggested carve-outs:
Labour: exempt new builds held as rentals from the capital gains tax for a set period, so the tax falls on trading existing homes, not on adding new ones.
ACT: target loss relief at new builds, for example for their first five years, instead of all rental homes. It would cost less and point investment at new supply.
Greens and Te Pāti Māori: exempt new builds from rent caps or rent control for a set period so investors still have a reason to build.
Opportunity: extend the land tax deferral beyond the two-year build period for new homes kept as long-term rentals, and phase the tax in with checkpoints on rental supply.
Everyone: before adding costs for landlords, answer one question: who will provide the capital for the homes we need, and will enough of them still be willing to do it at this point in the property cycle?
Nobody is talking to the Reserve Bank
National and Labour both promise 5% deposit home loans for buyers earning up to $300,000. These loans are backed by Kāinga Ora and sit outside the Reserve Bank's normal deposit rules for banks.
That helps buyers get over the deposit wall, which is the main barrier for first-home buyers. But neither party says how it fits with the Reserve Bank's limits on low-deposit lending, and neither sets a limit on how many loans can be backed.
Housing policy and lending rules act on the same buyers and the same banks. They are two hands on one steering wheel. If one pulls left and the other pulls right, the car goes nowhere useful. And if deposit help arrives without new homes, more buyers end up chasing the same houses, which is how prices rise.
What would fix it
Agree the numbers with the Reserve Bank. Set out how many government-backed low-deposit loans the scheme expects each year, and how that sits alongside the bank lending limits.
Add a volume brake. If take-up runs well ahead of expectations, the income cap tightens automatically.
Tilt deposit help toward new homes. Higher limits, or a lower deposit, for buyers of new builds would add buyers where new supply is being added, rather than bidding up existing homes.
At a glance
Opportunity: strongest on building machinery (simpler national zoning, one national approval for factory-built homes, rewards for councils), but its land tax fails the rental test.
National: a deposit boost and red-tape cuts on top of a large programme already in law. No brakes, and no plan for how it fits with lending rules.
Labour: more social housing, renter protections and rent-to-buy, with a capital gains tax that lowers returns for landlords, new builds included.
ACT: tax relief for landlords and fewer council consents, not targeted at new homes, with no brakes.
NZ First: tighter fast-track rules that make developers prove the pipes and roads exist.
Greens and Te Pāti Māori: big public building ambitions and strong renter protections, with costs for landlords and no funding plan for the build.
What to watch after 7 November
No party will govern alone, and coalition deals will mix these plans. Watch three things.
Brakes. Does any deal include a review date, a limit or a trigger?
Stacking. Do changes for landlords land one at a time, or all at once? One change can be absorbed. Three at once is a different test.
Sequencing. Does help with deposits arrive alongside new homes, or on its own?
The best outcome is not one party's plan. It is a deal that keeps the strongest pieces, adds the carve-outs and brakes, and tells builders and investors which rules will still stand in three years.
About the Housing Compass
The Housing Compass is Staircase’s framework for testing housing policy. It looks at eight parts of housing:
Macroprudential alignment: whether the Reserve Bank’s lending limits work with the policy.
Deliverable supply: whether land zoned for housing can really be built on.
Construction productivity and competition: what it costs to build, and how fast.
Local government incentives: whether councils gain or lose when they allow new homes.
Infrastructure delivery: who pays for and builds the pipes and roads, and when.
Rental market settings: how tax and tenancy rules affect the supply of rentals.
Affordability and access: how hard it is to save a deposit and afford a home.
Consequences testing: whether the policy will be checked to see if it worked.
It does not guess what house prices will do, and it does not tell you who to vote for.
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