Property lobby again ignores laws of economics (26/02/07).
Research compiled by The Australian shows there is actually 10 years of land supply in Sydney, Brisbane & Melbourne with 155,000 lots zoned for residential development. However, developers say they will not develop this land as property related taxes have made these sites uneconomical to develop.
Whilst we agree that some of these taxes are levied inefficiently (ie stamp duty), a far more effective revenue raising tool would be to raise the site rental on land itself. Such a site rental would force these valuable resources to be used efficiently, rather than held off the market until the developer’s ‘blackmail’ price is met.
With land having grown by 154% over the last 15 years in Melbourne, how much profit is ‘reasonable’ for these developers?