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Immigration is exacerbating Australian housing problems. Australia also has an obsession with property speculation as a tax efficient investment with capital g

Immigration is exacerbating Australian housing problems. Australia also has an obsession with property speculation as a tax efficient investment with capital gains discounts and negative gearing. Property in Australia isn’t about owning a home, it’s about having an investment. Pretty much all houses in Australia are sold at auction. It’s impossible to get an accurate guide price. Every dark pattern is used to maximise sale price at auction. The auctions them selves are something of a spectacle with real estate agents acting as minor celebrities. So much wealth in Australia is now in property, anything that reduces property value such as building more homes, increasing supply, abolishing negative gearing and capital gains discounts is political suicide. Prosperity owners in Australia have become dependent on the next owner paying more than the current owner to cover negative gearing and make a profit via capital gains. Text book definition of a pyramid scheme. Builders are land banking drip feeding supply. Why increase supply selling for less when they can maximise value by artificially limit supply. Then current own homers are a bunch of middle class NIMBYS. I live in a suburb the NSW government announced has a high priority suburb to build high density as it is along a rail route. Perfect place to build along a rail route with access to the city, central coast etc. The locals don’t want it. Sydney is now the second most expensive place to live in the world. It’s property problems has a lot more to it than immigration.

defrost 2y ago
> Property in Australia isn’t about owning a home, it’s about having an investment. I'm old, I benefit from this .. not that I want to. I'm interested in more housing, available and affordable housing - it's difficult to say the least to move policy in that direction; people agree that it's desirable but somehow every attempt to to take action forwards gets blocked or otherwise shutdown in councils that have been captured by real estate lobby groups and builders that are profiting from upper middle class estates, etc.
- happymellon 2y ago
  > I'm old, I benefit from this .. not that I want to. Are you planning on selling and downsizing to a vastly overpriced apartment? One that would probably end up costing as much as a house because the bottom end has been squeezed? Because that's the only way you'll realise the price increase, and you'll mostly lose it due to everything else being overpriced. Unless you don't actually mean "not that I want to".
  - defrost 2y ago
    By "not that I want to" I pretty much mean that I never bought land or housing as a financial investment but it turned out to have a substantial increase in value; likely to be realised by children | grandchildren if they sell. The value to me is a rear granny flat I can stay in for free | lend out to friends in the capital on a block with a house I got a kick out of rebuilding and now rent out at discount rates to students, etc. and rural land about the state, some near the ocean, that pays it's own way and can be lived on as I move about.
NoPicklez 2y ago
Yes, it has more problems than immigration, the same way UK's housing problems aren't just due to immigration. However, immigration has massively exacerbated and accelerated all of the problems above since COVID.

defrost 2y ago

> Property in Australia isn’t about owning a home, it’s about having an investment. I'm old, I benefit from this .. not that I want to. I'm interested in more housing, available and affordable housing - it's difficult to say the least to move policy in that direction; people agree that it's desirable but somehow every attempt to to take action forwards gets blocked or otherwise shutdown in councils that have been captured by real estate lobby groups and builders that are profiting from upper middle class estates, etc.

happymellon 2y ago
> I'm old, I benefit from this .. not that I want to. Are you planning on selling and downsizing to a vastly overpriced apartment? One that would probably end up costing as much as a house because the bottom end has been squeezed? Because that's the only way you'll realise the price increase, and you'll mostly lose it due to everything else being overpriced. Unless you don't actually mean "not that I want to".
- defrost 2y ago
  By "not that I want to" I pretty much mean that I never bought land or housing as a financial investment but it turned out to have a substantial increase in value; likely to be realised by children | grandchildren if they sell. The value to me is a rear granny flat I can stay in for free | lend out to friends in the capital on a block with a house I got a kick out of rebuilding and now rent out at discount rates to students, etc. and rural land about the state, some near the ocean, that pays it's own way and can be lived on as I move about.

NoPicklez 2y ago

Yes, it has more problems than immigration, the same way UK's housing problems aren't just due to immigration. However, immigration has massively exacerbated and accelerated all of the problems above since COVID.