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Speaker 1: The good people at one roof were hinting at it.

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Speaker 1: The other day they were reacting to what I know

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Speaker 1: to be a bit of buzz within the real estate

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Speaker 1: community that the government are going to move on foreign

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Speaker 1: buyers this year. So I talked to a lot of

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Speaker 1: agents and they ranged from telling me at the moment

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Speaker 1: it's on, governor are going to move, to those who

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Speaker 1: hope it's on, to those who want it to be

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Speaker 1: on but aren't holding their breath currently. If you don't know,

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Speaker 1: you can buy a house if you're an Australian or

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Speaker 1: a Singaporean. Apart from that, there are hoops and hurdles

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Speaker 1: for some foreign buyers, but mainly you're blocked. This, of course,

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Speaker 1: is nonsense, and National had a very elegant solution that

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Speaker 1: carved out house prices under two million dollars, which is

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Speaker 1: the vast majority of sales. Of course, so if the

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Speaker 1: American who wanted to open a company, invest in jobs

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Speaker 1: and bring some expansion to the country, they could also

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Speaker 1: fork out nine million dollars for a lovely place at

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Speaker 1: Lake Hayes. Winston, of course, was having none of that,

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Speaker 1: So we're stuck. The hope as Winston can be moved.

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Speaker 1: The rumor grows that Winston might be about to be moved.

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Speaker 1: I hope. So the latest word is five million. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, five million or above, anyone is welcome

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Speaker 1: to buy a house in this country. What we have,

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Speaker 1: I mean, what we have to fear from that, I've

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Speaker 1: got no idea. What we know for sure is we

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Speaker 1: are desperately short of money. We've got a pile of

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Speaker 1: work that needs doing, and we need all the help

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Speaker 1: we can get. In my area right now, there's a

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Speaker 1: handful of ten million dollar plus houses for sale. They've

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Speaker 1: been on the market for over a year. They haven't

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Speaker 1: sold because no one here has that money for a house,

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Speaker 1: and those who do already have houses open the foreign

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Speaker 1: investment door, they would be snapped up. We either want

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Speaker 1: to do business or we don't. We're either open to

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Speaker 1: the world or we aren't. The irony for me is

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Speaker 1: Peter's of all people, in his role as Foreign Minister,

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Speaker 1: seems to get that as much, if not more than

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Speaker 1: anybody else, and yet on housing he remains the xenophobic

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Speaker 1: old relic he played so well twenty years ago. Let's

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Speaker 1: hope the year brings a bit of enlightenment, ay and

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Speaker 1: we can, at last and at least, get on with it.

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Speaker 1: For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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