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Negative gearing is made out to sound much worse than it is. If anything, it's a benefit to wage earners by allowing them to pay a business expense from their p

Negative gearing is made out to sound much worse than it is. If anything, it's a benefit to wage earners by allowing them to pay a business expense from their pay. It's just a standard deduction afforded to investors for business expenses. IIRC it's actually quite difficult for foreign buyers to get into the market, and expensive as well. The housing vacancy rate is lower than ever. There definitely aren't millions of empty houses. Largely the issue is just going to be too many people and not enough houses where they are needed. The more liberal we are with permitting apartment and unit construction, the better things will be in the long term. I'm not sure restricting migration is the solution - but you can definitely argue that the rate is too high.

crooked-v 3y ago
On this note, I find it increasingly infuriating to keep coming across people who blame all housing shortage issues on eeeeeevil investors and landlords, and spout a lot of bullshit about massive vacancy rates that don't exist, when the blatant root supply-and-demand cause is that there's just not enough physical housing in the places that people want to live. You see exactly the same kind of stuff endlessly parroted in the US by people who somehow think that confiscating property from all landlords will make the millions [1] of needed housing units just manifest out of thin air. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/homes/housing-shortage/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/homes/housing-shortage/index....
- andrewstuart 3y ago
  >> when the blatant root supply-and-demand cause is that there's just not enough physical housing in the places that people want to live. And the ALP government is adding 1.5 million people to the demand side of the equation.
andrewstuart 3y ago
In 2020 negative gearing was costing $13BN a year. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/negative-gearing-cost-reaches-13-billion-a-year-20200717-p55d06.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/negative-gearing-cos... Tax concessions for housing investors to cost $20bn a year within a decade, analysis shows. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/03/tax-concessions-for-housing-investors-to-cost-20bn-a-year-within-a-decade-analysis-shows https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/03/tax-c... The Australian government should be spending $20BN a year building public housing, not giving money to property investors.
- chii 3y ago
  Had there not been the tax concessions, those property investors might've not invested in the first place, and thus, there would be an even lower baseline - the gov't's $20BN that they supposedly saved would not have made up for the shortfall either. I rather the gov't give back the tax dollars in that case. And nothing stops an investor from making a company, and using that mechanism to negatively gear - unless somehow the proposal specifically targeted real estate. People in australia complain about high property prices often think it's negative gearing causing it - but it's not. Australia is full of rich people, and high income earners. That's why property prices are high.
andrewstuart 3y ago
>> There definitely aren't millions of empty houses. https://www.ahuri.edu.au/analysis/brief/are-there-1-million-empty-homes-and-13-million-unused-bedrooms https://www.ahuri.edu.au/analysis/brief/are-there-1-million-... The 2021 Census reveals that 10.1 per cent (1,043,776 homes) of Australia’s 10,318,997 private dwellings were unoccupied on the night of the Census. While this may seem that a very large proportion of Australia’s housing is unlived in, the reality is dwellings are identified as unoccupied for a number of reasons such as: homes are being renovated homes being sold as vacant possession newly built or bought homes where no one has moved in yet rental homes awaiting new tenants people living away temporarily from home during the census count (travelling or visiting other homes) homes are deemed unliveable subject to a probate application or other legal proceedings holiday homes homes owned by people currently living overseas homes being land banked, that is held vacant until the local area economics (or personal circumstances) make it more profitable to sell or redevelop the property.

crooked-v 3y ago

On this note, I find it increasingly infuriating to keep coming across people who blame all housing shortage issues on eeeeeevil investors and landlords, and spout a lot of bullshit about massive vacancy rates that don't exist, when the blatant root supply-and-demand cause is that there's just not enough physical housing in the places that people want to live. You see exactly the same kind of stuff endlessly parroted in the US by people who somehow think that confiscating property from all landlords will make the millions [1] of needed housing units just manifest out of thin air. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/homes/housing-shortage/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/homes/housing-shortage/index....

andrewstuart 3y ago
>> when the blatant root supply-and-demand cause is that there's just not enough physical housing in the places that people want to live. And the ALP government is adding 1.5 million people to the demand side of the equation.

andrewstuart 3y ago

In 2020 negative gearing was costing $13BN a year. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/negative-gearing-cost-reaches-13-billion-a-year-20200717-p55d06.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/negative-gearing-cos... Tax concessions for housing investors to cost $20bn a year within a decade, analysis shows. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/03/tax-concessions-for-housing-investors-to-cost-20bn-a-year-within-a-decade-analysis-shows https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/03/tax-c... The Australian government should be spending $20BN a year building public housing, not giving money to property investors.

chii 3y ago
Had there not been the tax concessions, those property investors might've not invested in the first place, and thus, there would be an even lower baseline - the gov't's $20BN that they supposedly saved would not have made up for the shortfall either. I rather the gov't give back the tax dollars in that case. And nothing stops an investor from making a company, and using that mechanism to negatively gear - unless somehow the proposal specifically targeted real estate. People in australia complain about high property prices often think it's negative gearing causing it - but it's not. Australia is full of rich people, and high income earners. That's why property prices are high.

andrewstuart 3y ago

>> There definitely aren't millions of empty houses. https://www.ahuri.edu.au/analysis/brief/are-there-1-million-empty-homes-and-13-million-unused-bedrooms https://www.ahuri.edu.au/analysis/brief/are-there-1-million-... The 2021 Census reveals that 10.1 per cent (1,043,776 homes) of Australia’s 10,318,997 private dwellings were unoccupied on the night of the Census. While this may seem that a very large proportion of Australia’s housing is unlived in, the reality is dwellings are identified as unoccupied for a number of reasons such as: homes are being renovated homes being sold as vacant possession newly built or bought homes where no one has moved in yet rental homes awaiting new tenants people living away temporarily from home during the census count (travelling or visiting other homes) homes are deemed unliveable subject to a probate application or other legal proceedings holiday homes homes owned by people currently living overseas homes being land banked, that is held vacant until the local area economics (or personal circumstances) make it more profitable to sell or redevelop the property.