Housing Affordability on the March

Solutions to housing affordability formed a centrepiece of the Property Council’s pre-Budget submission to the Commonwealth.

With a housing package poised to serve as a centrepiece of the Federal Budget, the Property Council has been actively engaged with policymakers across both sides of the aisle.

This has helped reinforce the suite of policy recommendations in our budget submission including:

• Establishing a reform fund to underpin an incentives-based model to drive solutions across all levels of government to fix housing markets and planning systems by boosting supply pipelines, and cutting red tape costs and approval times,
• Explore new models that will bring institutional scale capital into the mix in establishing affordable rental housing for key workers,
• Retention of negative gearing and carefully canvass any changes to the capital gains tax discount  – recognising the importance of the rental market,
• Reinstate the Housing Supply Council to capture, scrutinise and map key data on housing supply across the nation, and
• Allowing pensioners aged over 75 to downsize their home and quarantine a portion of the excess sale from proceeds of the asset test.

We have also been working to promote solutions that will close the deposit gap  – such as replicating the successful Keystart model in Western Australia.

The Property Council is also warning that additional curbs or taxes on foreign investment risk hitting both supply-side capital trying to build new homes, as well as dampen the contribution to pre-sales from individual buyers.

Read the Property council’s pre-Budget submission here.