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In some quarters, the median Sydney home earns more from capital gains than the median worker earns from wages. Now’s a good time to wind back the measures that push prices up.
David Gray/AAP
Corporations provide security in the form of long-term leases.
‘Pssst, wanna buy a house?’
SFIO CRACHO
At a time when so many are struggling, cutting stamp duty and helping the well off might seem like a strange move.
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It’s time to reform stamp duty, one of the most inefficient and distorting taxes collected by Australia’s state and territory governments.
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It’s not easy to choose between the costly hassle of renovating and the expensive upheaval of selling up, and buying a new property.
Easypads
It’ll have to fund tens of thousands of homes that were going to be built anyway before it creates a single extra house.
AAP/Paul Miller
At the moment, buying a house with a “history” falls under the “buyer beware” provision. But changes to Victorian law shift the onus to estate agents to disclose “stigmatised” property.
Sam Mooy/AAP
Millions of Australians are struggling with unaffordable housing. It’s a systemic problem that’s been decades in the making, and only concerted system-wide reforms will fix it.
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The regulation of student accommodation varies between different providers.
Vancouver has become a money-laundering haven. Can a public inquiry find solutions?
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A public inquiry into money laundering underway in British Columbia holds out hope for reform, but the problems run deep.
A less common sight in the U.S. today.
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Over the last 35 years, the number of Americans who have moved has steadily declined to nearly half of their previous levels.
Independent bookstores are places where culture is collected and disseminated. The gentrification of city centres makes their existence increasingly precarious.
Kévin Langlais on Unsplash, CC BY-NC
The demands of gentrification in some neighbourhoods are proving deadly for some independent businesses, including local bookstores, often forcing them to close.
How likely is it that where you happen to live will always outperform every other location?
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Investing where you’ve last invested isn’t bright. new research finds that two thirds of property investors do.
When trying to find a romantic match, we’re often overwhelmed with options.
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Freedom of choice is a pillar of Western culture. But can too much of it be a bad thing?
New York has become a ‘city for the rich’ in recent decades, a shift in its real estate market that impacts policy-making, too.
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New York City’s municipal budget relies heavily on the property taxes of extremely high-value real estate. That drives gentrification and distorts local policy in other ways that hurt residents.
Mirvac Pavilions Olympic Park under construction. Build to rent won’t be a simple solution to fix housing affordability, but it can fulfil many other public policy objectives.
Constructing buildings to rent, rather than sell, may fulfil important housing policy objectives – but it won’t take off without tax reform.
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Policies to tackle climate change will make it more expensive not to act.
Real estate agents don’t decide rents, landlords do.
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The real estate industry acts in its own interests, not those of the tenants it scares.
It won’t help enough, but it will get some people their keys.
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The real problem with the government’s first home owner deposit scheme is that it won’t prioritise those who need the funds the most.
One set of policies acknowledges reality.
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You can’t help first home buyers without making other buyers worse off.