WELLINGTON, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- An expo to sell New Zealand homes to foreign buyers has sparked fury as the country deals with a housing crisis.
Opposition lawmakers lambasted the government for its lack of action on the crisis after revealing the two-day Singapore expo on Tuesday.
A full-page advert in Singapore's Straits Times newspaper for the Prime New Zealand Properties Expo emerged in New Zealand just a day after the government released controversial data showing that overseas tax resident buyers and sellers were behind just 3 percent of New Zealand property transfers.
Land Information Minister Louise Upston on Monday fended off calls for a ban on non-resident home buyers, arguing the incomplete data showed no change in the proportion of overseas tax resident buyers in the first two quarters this year.
However, the expo showed how the government was denying reality over foreign buyers, said leader of the opposition New Zealand Party Winston Peters.
"If foreign ownership is as small as the government claims it to be, then why would an outfit like Brooke International book a room at the Singapore Hilton and spend 20,000 NZ dollars (14,347 U.S. dollars) on an advert for a New Zealand properties expo?" Peters asked in a statement.
The ad listed the benefits of buying in New Zealand as 'No stamp duty,' 'No restrictions on resale to foreigners' and 'A lucrative investment with income up to 30 years' in the biggest city of Auckland or the South Island ski resort of Queenstown - both areas with chronic shortages of affordable homes.
"This advert shows how New Zealand is seen by the rest of the world - an easy place to buy that offers great returns - returns earned from an already overheated property market in Auckland," said Peters.
"The government must crack down hard on foreign buyers and establish a real register of foreign buyers."
Data also emerged Tuesday showing the cost of the average house in Auckland - home to a third of the population - closing on 1 million NZ dollars (717,360 U.S. dollars).
"Auckland house prices went up 552 NZ dollars (374 U.S. dollars) a day in the last month, and continue to accelerate," said leader of the main opposition Labour Party Andrew Little.
Values in the neighboring city of Hamilton rose 31.5 percent in the last year, "giving it the dubious honour of having some of the fastest rising house prices in the world," Little said in a statement.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand announced last month that it was tightening loan-to-value ratios on mortgage lending after repeating its warning that the Auckland property market was a risk to the country's financial stability.
The country's four main commercial banks have also announced that they have stopped lending to foreign buyers.
