Crazy Greens - they're onto something

Housing is messed up | Australian Greens

Lovin the idea to build 1,000,000 homes. Finally a supply side suggestion at a decent scale.

Disagree with their anti investor sentiment (of course). And would be a better outcome if delivered by private enterprise rather than the state.

But the miserly quantity of supply in my view is the ongoing problem.

 

Just ask yourself how the Greens intend to attempt this, allowing people to " pay only 300k for homes to live where you want to live"? (btw its a fantasy and an impossibility.)

Their real agenda is to totally ***** you, me and many other hard working folks with even more taxes, greatly impinge on landlord rights even further and attempt to plunge real estate values down the toilet.

I wouldn't fall for their insidious poison.

 

This implies that you can't buy a home for $300,000... you clearly can in so many places. Yes you can't buy a free standing house on 600sqm in Sydney's Inner West for $300,000, but you can buy some units in Sydney's West/Southwest for close to that, and plenty available in regions/other capitals. It's not a lot of places, but you don't need to own a home either. Renting is an option and that is certainly possible for someone who can afford a $300k home.

They want to get rid of property investors, but promote long-term renting... lol learning to running by cutting your legs off is a bold strategy. I actually don't mind the long-term rental idea in isolation though - after all, housing and not ownership of houses is the government's issue.

It also implies that these homes won't be built at all. They will eventually, sure there is an element of drip-feeding on behalf of the developers, but they also have to consider supply shortages and cost increases in labour and materials. These million homes would cost an insane amount if done at once and/or be seriously low quality.

It wasn't mentioned, but an increased vacancy tax on foreign owners and limiting foreign ownership by more aggressively targeting opaque structures would be good. Abandoning population growth through migration as a strategy would also help alleviate demand issues and using migration as a tool to supplement quality of life for Australians, rather than economic growth would also be ideal.

I also think the assumption that homelessness is a supply issue is also a bit flawed. If you look into the long-term homeless population, there are far more issues than simply a lack of housing.

I think this is just another well meaning plan from the Greens that just misses the mark in both identifying how the issue has come about and doubly misses the mark in how to adequately address it.

 

There is plenty of lower cost housing available around Australia.

Problem is that it is not situated where people want to live.

 

The Greens think Australia starts and ends at Fitzroy/Brunswick/Marrickville/Newtown/West End and refuse to acknowledge affordable housing exists outside of these postcodes