Affordable Housing

We all know that owning or even renting a home in Australia is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many people. At Prosper, we believe a house is a human right, and shouldn’t be treated as just another investment opportunity.

We focus on increasing land taxes as a way of sharing the land value pie with the whole community, not just enriching a lucky few. A broad-based land tax can improve housing affordability by:

• Encouraging the private sector to build faster
• Bringing underutilised or vacant properties onto the market
• Discouraging investors from short-term property “flipping”

We should replace inefficient taxes, such as stamp duty, with broad-based land taxes. Government involvement in the housing market should be focused on methods to penalise inefficient land use, rather than seller/landowner subsidies, such as home buyer grants and negative gearing. 

At Prosper we also support alternative tenure options, such as Community Land Trusts and shared equity schemes, where the land is rented out and not owned as an asset 

You can find out more about Prosper’s campaigns, research and policies around housing on our Blog.