Housing/rental affordability – lots of thoughts
‘Information plus an entrepreneurial spirit = business success’ is a basic formula that sticks in my mind from teaching days. After listening to the radio this morning I am wondering if we at the grassroots OR our leaders/policymakers know enough about what goes on in the property market and the superannuation field to even start to think about applying an entrepreneurial approach to the housing/rental affordability problem?
Comments on ABC talkback radio
- incomes have not kept up with the cost of living;
- the huge amounts of super funds HAVE to go somewhere and a different policy approach could direct funds into property instead of ‘locking them away’;
- Justine Caines of the new What Women Want party said as a starter she would have hard look at the situation and work out exactly who is making money out of property;
- a woman just returned from Switzerland said her Swiss friends had just bought a house there and were absolutely horrified that home buyers here couldn’t use mortgage interest as a tax deduction. “Why would Australians buy houses?” was the reaction. Jon Faine commented that he thought the US has a similar policy.
- Living in the country is a good alternative. Lifestyle is great, land and houses are affordable.
Comments on the Domain.com.au.blog
- The current situation is shameful. Does the finance minister believe families paying record percentages of take-home pay into mortgage interest is good for the economy?
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We are a small country with the most expensive real estate and highest per capita debt in the world. Who is behind this?
NB Felicity McMahon writing for Online Opinion about The death of personal responsibility says the problem is that people have simply taken on too much debt. - It will take a restructuring of the tax system, including negative gearing concessions, as well as some very bright people sitting down and nutting out a path forwards…What we have on our hands now is the result and fault of both sides of the political fence and how they have structured tax and property laws over the last 20 years… Let’s find a real solution…Make it a shared challenge (between all political parties).
- Standards today are far above those of our parents…kids these days want to get in to a place that his generation could only afford in later on in life…But even the most basic of homes/flats are beyond reasonable value for money…single professionals…probably sporting individual wages of 100k and above are unable to afford 1-2 bedroom flats anywhere near the city…if they can’t afford it, who can!!!!
- Give us faster, reliable train networks for a start (then living on the city outskirts or in the country is an option).
The questions in my mind are:
- Why DON’T we look at what works, at what HAPPENS, overseas?? Are we really that insular or arrogant that we are happy to ignore policies and practices that work elsewhere in the world?
- How do we get our ‘silos’ of information – and their gatekeepers – into one place so they can be assessed AND the info passed onto interested citizens?
- Isn’t such a process a function of modern deliberative democracy?
2 Comments
Living in the country is only a good option if there are jobs there. Promoting decentralisation of industry (and government departments) would possibly ease the pressure for all of us to live close to the capital cities.
In many places overseas people don’t expect to buy a house (or apartment) but they do expect the security of a long lease – and they want to be able to live in the rental property as if it were their own, with pets, with pictures on the walls, with their own paint choice etc. Changing the culture of renting, so that people can live comfortably while they invest elsewhere, is long overdue.
Good points Kate