Jacinda Ardern forced to 'beg people' to stop investing in houses an 'admission of failure' - ACT

The ACT Party is condemning Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's comments on housing, saying her suggestion is an "admission of failure".

Speaking to Newshub Nation on Saturday, Ardern said we should think carefully before getting ourselves into an "overheated" housing market.

"What we want them to think about is how you can contribute to the productive economy in New Zealand," she said.

"By going into an overheated housing market, it makes it so much worse for others and you won't necessarily get the long term benefits that we'd like you to get."

ACT's housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden says it's "astonishing" what the Government is resorting to.

"After the median house price rose $200,000 and with no reason to believe the rise will stop, the Government has resorted to asking people not to invest in housing."

Van Velden says "having to beg people not to invest in housing is an admission of failure".

"The Government was elected to make housing affordable but after three-and-a-half years, the median house price has risen 38 percent from $530,000 to $730,000.

"The Prime Minister has to beg people not to invest because the Government has no other plan."

Ardern told Newshub Nation she hasn't actually made any decisions about potential policy changes.

"I'm not going to get into hypotheticals about what we will or won't do until we've actually made some considered decisions," she told Newshub political editor Tova O'Brien.

"We haven't made those decisions. We haven't made any decisions."