Are the empty houses scattered around our cities the solution to the housing problem?abc.net.au/news/housing-property-australias-one-million-empty-homes/101396656The recent release of 2021 Census data revealed a shocking "one million homes were unoccupied".
There has been a great deal of speculation about how this has happened. Has it been caused by overseas millionaires buying up housing and leaving it as an empty investment? Is it Airbnb taking up homes that could be used for families? Or are cashed-up Gen-Xers double-consuming by living in one house while renovating another?In fact, we've got a pretty good idea of what's going on.
Since the release of the data, many journalists have pointed to this startling number of empty homes, portraying them as abandoned or left empty. There is almost certainly a much more ordinary and less startling story to tell. We suspect there are three main explanations.
Albo is fast tracking passport visas for one million ' tourists'. No problem
What has Air B&B done for society? It has taken a million homes off the long term rental market and placed them on the short term rental market to make more money for the landlords. Ban Air B&B in Australia and suddenly we have 1 million homes available for long term rent.
Anything to deflect attention away from the underlying problem, which is solely an insufficient quantity of low cost social housing. If the poorest are provided for, the free market can be left to find it's own level - it would not matter who left their home empty.
Yeh let’s go socialism let’s go
I love how they frame this as a mystery. Like, 'If only we had some curious kids and a great Dane, we could solve the uncanny appearance of a million empty houses.'
might help?
A small part, but hyper demand (via CGT and NG tax concessions for property investors, foreign ownership, high immigration and cheap credit) is the main game.
Is defunding the 1.5 billion the ABC receives the answer.?
There are not one million 'empty' homes. Nearly half of them are on the property market to be sold and the rest are only addresses that didn't return a census form.
they are mainly on neg gearing It is a priority to get rid the incentives
Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies. The only sure answer to the property crisis is to reduce demand - stop importing hundreds of thousands of people per year.
Ask anyone who went doorknocking for Monique Ryan in the Kooyong electorate at the last election (the campaign knocked on every house) and they’ll tell you the amount of empty houses and bare blocks was staggering.
...they're the answer to the question: Are Australia's tax incentives having the desired outcomes? .
The headline answers its own question.
Article didn’t reveal how many homes are estimated to be land banking by overseas investors. Is this information available?
1m empty homes? Has to be money in it for the owners? It sure would make sense to get them occupied wouldn't it? Commission houses are left unoccupied as well with the government not being bothered to maintain? Get ALL commission properties up and running asap would kinda help
A new Squattocracy will sort it out.
the capital gains tax 50% discount might be the problem
This is 'silo' analysis at best. Selecting the pieces you want to analyse. Setting up a result by jumping on tracks that take you to that result. You can't prepare a report like this and expect to get a realistic picture without considering tax offsets especially on new proprty
When the occupation of a rental is no longer a partnership between the property owner and the renter more owners will choose vacancy. An answer starts with collaborative policy.
While the housing crisis and homelessness in this country is terrible...how people who own properties use them is up to them..,in a housing crisis empty houses should be taxed which goes towards social housing ! There should be more incentives for people to buy their own home !
'and treating short-term rentals as commercial properties essential to the tourism industry are just two ways we can get better occupancy of our stock.' Or 'If we stop counting all the empty houses, there will be less of them.'
1 million Australian homes sitting empty doing nothing and 1 million of homeless people in every capital city of Australia.🤬 Laziness is such a b****!🤬🤬 More yearly immigration intakes yeah sure..... 🤬🤬🤬