Like most 30 somethings with a substantial HECS debt and an addiction to avocado on toast, I am an aspiring first home buyer. I’d love to buy the home I currently rent: a daggy 1960’s ‘six-pack’ flat on a main road in Footscray. It’s currently valued around $360,000....
BLOG: housing affordability
Does taxing investors drive up the rent?
The Productivity Commission’s recent five year review, “Shifting the Dial”, brings the welcome recommendation of a shift from stamp duties to a broad-based land tax. Stamp duty is a dud tax from the economist’s point of view; it doesn’t achieve an obvious...
Greens discover the housing, tax and wealth reality
The Greens have a new housing policy out. They begin with the high principle that all should have access to land then veer off with emotion at the tax rorts available to the wealthy. Everyone Needs A Home calls for an end to negative gearing, the Capital Gains Tax...
Leadership is more than presiding, Gladys
Economist Peter Abelson has dropped a bomb on Sydney’s madly expensive land market, asserting the usual demand and supply equations have little influence on prices while major positive benefits are available from ending Stamp Duty and using land tax. His views only...
Our lives are like a Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Bruegel painting
by Dr Gavin Putland WORKERS (i) pay rent, (ii) help their employers to pay rent, and (iii) raise some of the next generation of rent-payers. LAND SPECULATORS (i) receive economic rent for the gifts of nature, (ii) take the credit for providing them, and (iii) lobby...
The Metricon Judgement
In March last year, the NSW Supreme Court set aside the NSW Office of State Revenue’s assessment for land tax in 2009-13 on certain lands at Terranora in the Tweed Valley held by Metricon. The developer bought the $60m aggregation to subdivide for residential use. It...
But… But Rents only go up! Don’t they?
Lindsay David and Philip Soos at LF Economics demonstrate real rents are falling across the country, except in Hobart. This is only possible with falling wages, weak demand and excess housing supply. Little landlords have no compunction about evicting bolshie tenants...
Victoria to tax vacant properties into use
Premier Daniel Andrews announced a range of housing affordability measures Sunday, some of which will help. The eye-opener is the introduction of a Vacant Residential Property Tax at one per cent of the capital improved value on properties held vacant for six months...
Report Insights on the UN’s Financialisation of Housing
The UN Special Rapporteur’s Report into the financialisation of housing delivers a damning indictment on the worldwide commodification of housing. The report investigates the state of housing globally, the current economic policy trends to control and shape...
Housing affordability and the changing debt burden of a typical mortgage
by Philip Soos reposted from The Guardian Australia’s historically high and rising housing prices are widely debated and have prompted a number of government inquiries into housing affordability. The question stands open: is housing affordable in Australia?...