The consensus on the government's move on property tax seems to be that it won't make much of a difference to the over heated Auckland market.

Its called 'flipping', and to get taxed you essentially have to 'flip' the property within two years.

There is an assumption that property investors 'flip' properties regularly to make a non-taxed profit. Some no doubt do, but they are taxed now. I think this 'flipping' thing is exaggerated.

Most property investors buy and hold properties because of the tax concessions.

Robin Oliver, a former Deputy Commissioner of Inland Revenue responsible for tax policy said "the changes will have minimal impact on the price of housing. Australia had the two year rule. Then they introduced a full capital gains tax. Both were ineffective at reducing house prices."

The two-pronged attack with the Reserve Bank's changes, and now the new rules, will see more investors picked up. It's clear that the IRD's Property Compliance Unit is upping the ante. People have been rorting the system.

That doesn't mean it will have much of an impact on house prices. It just means more property investors will be caught up in paying tax.

The underlying problem is still supply.

I think the key change is the way non-residents are treated. They must provide their tax identification number from their home country, identification requirements such as a passport, must have a New Zealand bank account number before they can get an IRD number.

More tax will be collected from foreign buyers, but I doubt that's of great concern if they are long term holders.

What the new rules will mean is that parking laundered money into New Zealand property will be harder.

Foreign buyers will have to pay with-holding tax when they sell a property.

We will now have some facts rather than the anecdotal stories and assumptions that just because you look Asian means you're a foreign buyer.

The new regulations are all too little too late according to Labour and the Greens. They will simply ban sales to foreigners. That, of course would be stupid, but there we go.