Rental property

NZ Herald 7 April 2007

Q&As: A year-old letter shows the danger in trying to predict what the Kiwi dollar will do; “Plodders” wonder how to match the investments of their landlord friends; Traders in shares beyond Australasia no longer pay the old tax on capital gains; How about taxing rental property the same way as international shares?

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NZ Herald 17 March 2007

Q&As: Landlords, beware! Changes being considered in rental property taxation; Reader feels unfairly punished by Reserve Bank’s interest rate hike; The word “secured” in a debenture ad is hardly a warning sign. The company is just following the law.

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NZ Herald 25 November 2006

Q&As: Is it a good idea to go back to 100 per cent mortgage on rental and invest the money in a term deposit?; A reader supports gradually building up a share portfolio; Another charity offers Christmas gifts for the needy on behalf of your friends and relatives; Reader wants more info on charities before making gifts; A Sydney minister’s quick-witted response; Prices then and now — and how houses fit into the picture; Cathedral carvings show inflation is nothing new; A reader’s pie and doughnut confession.

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NZ Herald 11 November 2006

Q&As: What’s happened to the price of pies over the years?; Would it be good for NZ if Inland Revenue was tougher on rental property capital gains?; When is “income” really “profit”?; Reluctant shareholders worry about their lack of power — How best to hold shares.

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NZ Herald 4 November 2006

Q&As: Two on why many rental property investors should pay tax on their gains when they sell. It’s the law!; How to teach teens about budgeting; Allowing for tax when calculating returns on term deposits.

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NZ Herald 28 October 2006

Q&As: A reader finds a flaw in my “avoid the rear-view mirror” argument. Or does he?; Would NZ’s tax revenue actually increase if we all invested offshore?; Inland Revenue says it can’t fix everything at once.

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The Investor 23 May 2006

Property backers underplay risk. Property backers seem to go in for hyperbole. Two examples from readers’ letters: “Shares are not and have never been as lucrative as property…. We now know why the richest people in the world and in NZ are property investors.”; “The average person can quietly work themselves into a residential property portfolio worth several million dollars with a decade or two of judicious acquisitions…. People putting a portion of their income aside to buy into share funds are left in the dust.”

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The Investor 9 May 2006

Index distortion not what it seems. A reader’s point about the ongoing shares v houses debate sounds fair enough. “Your comparisons do not compare like with like,” he writes, “because you are using an index for shares, which only covers some companies, whereas for housing, you are using the average over all houses.”

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The Investor 25 April 2006

Shares easier than reader thinks. It’s like a red rag to a bull. A paragraph in a reader’s email started, “Without getting into the share v property argument…” But why not get into it? After all, it’s at the very heart of most New Zealanders’ thinking about long-term investment. The reader, a mortgage broker, goes on to say, “I believe it is good for people to have a dabble in shares with spare cash but use property as their main retirement plan, even if they go hard out paying off just one rental property.

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