Owning a home has deep cultural and economic connotations. A home owner is a member of a street, a community. They are a successful adult human. They own a piece of the pie, the dream.
Older Australians are not deterred by financial barriers as much as emotional ones, when it comes to downsizing.
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When people do downsize, financial incentives are generally not the big things on their minds. And so most of the budget’s financial incentives will go to those who were going to downsize anyway.
Low-cost housing development on the city outskirts can expose owners to higher costs in the long run.
Paul Miller/AAP
People are taking on larger future risks and costs just so they can buy a house. Increases in new home owners are seen as a positive development, but what if they can’t afford the ongoing costs?
Regulations and changing conditions within China’s economy have led many Chinese investors to spend overseas.
Lazlo Balogh
Chinese real estate investors might be more interested in investing in their homeland rather than Australia, given the changing market and regulations.
Wes Mountain, The Conversation e Jenni Henderson, The Conversation
There’s been quite a bit of speculation over whether Australia has a property market bubble - where house prices are over-inflated compared to a benchmark - and when it might burst. According to housing…
Even properties at the lower end of the market are beyond the means of most people on low fixed incomes.
Tom Rabe/AAP
Only a small proportion of housing is affordable for low-income earners, while people on Newstart or Youth Allowance don’t have any affordable options at all.
A Shorten government would double the screening fees on foreign investment and financial penalties that apply to foreign investment in residential real estate.
Lukas Coch/AAP
It’s not the first time Australia has grappled with concerns about affordable housing. History offers insights that can help inform contemporary debates and policies.
At least ten cents in every dollar of superannuation assets is indirectly financing house purchases via commercial bank debt.
AAP/Lukas Coch
What critics of the plan to use superannuation for housing miss is that Australia’s super system already channels a significant proportion of retirement savings into housing.
The attention on the 2016 Census until now has been mostly negative.
AAP/Joel Carrett
Today’s release of data from the 2016 Census allows us to identify some of Australians’ more common characteristics, how they vary across states and territories, and how they are changing over time.
Scott Morrison says the response on housing must be comprehensive.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Scott Morrison will renew his warnings against tampering with negative gearing, in a speech on Monday.
APRA chairman Wayne Byres is leading a crackdown on interest-only loans, but it may not be enough to cool some parts of the housing market.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Declining interest rates has made housing more affordable over the past thirty years, but it has also increased the risk for homebuyers.
Despite all the proposals to combat housing affordability, Scott Morrison will need to make hard political decisions on policies that will actually make a difference.
Lukas Coch/AAP
The latest thought bubbles about using super savings for housing might be less harmful than in the past, but they would be just as ineffective.
To meet the needs of lower-income households, housing should be both affordable and located near public transport and other services.
Graeme Bartlett/Wikimedia
Victoria has been lagging behind other states in developing an affordable housing strategy. Now that one has been released, how well does it meet the needs of households on lower incomes?
Parents are recycling large amounts of housing wealth to the next generation through intergenerational transfers.
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Those whose parents own a home are able to take advantage of a wider set of opportunities than others.
Scott Morrison has recently broadened the range of affordable housing policy options he’s considering, and moving beyond simplistic supply-side solutions would be a positive development.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The housing supply solution our leaders are advocating will only work if affordability is simply a problem of supply. In fact, Australia is almost a world leader in rates of new housing production.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University