Grants to home buyers could cost the federal government billions without creating any extra jobs in construction. Investing in social housing is a better approach.
“Churning” out of and back in to home ownership is becoming common. We haven’t caught up.
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The budget acknowledges the crisis of affordability for first home buyers, but fails to do enough about demand pressures on prices to put home ownership back within their reach.
Rapid rise of Australian house prices have created disagreement between economists on whether a housing bubble currently exists.
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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.
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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.
On current trends, renters will eventually outnumber home buyers, representing a fundamental shift in how the economy and wealth generation work.
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Generation Rent may force a complete rethinking of home ownership as a basis of our housing systems. Rather than representing security, these housing markets make us vulnerable.
Some home buyers can’t afford to go through the regular channels so the rent-to-buy deals appeal to them.
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Without long-term solutions to the imbalance between incomes and house prices, Gen Ys face a lifetime of renting without the financial and emotional security of home ownership.
Superannuation savings are the target of an idea that refuses to go away.
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Allowing first home buyers to tap their super would worsen housing affordability, leave many people with less to retire on, and cost taxpayers in the long run.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University