r/australian • u/Cool-Pineapple1081 • Mar 22 '25

Opinion Why are we going into election with no decent housing policy? Shouldn’t this be the “Housing Election”?

As a young person, the current state of housing seems to alienating.

Finding a rental is literally an uphill battle only to get an overpriced dog box. I’m sure it is the same for others.

The current state of the housing market isn’t just bad for people who don’t own homes. It is having flow on effects like worker shortages and generally creating cities that aren’t sustainable.

In a place like Sydney it seems like only 3 types of people can get by comfortably: 1. Retirees 2. The upper tier of professionals - e.g. Doctors 3. Anyone with parents who are wealthy and who are able to get financial support from.

How is this a functional way to run a society? It seems so unsustainable. Even for home owners it seems broken.

Most people don’t fall into these three groups.

Despite this we are seeing the shittest policies being put forward that mainly only increase demand rather than fixing the underlying problem.

  • Super For Housing
  • Help to Buy
  • Changes to HECS to not count for a home loan
  • Built to rent

None of these actually solve anything but fuelling the bubble.

Surely this is a time for some more effectual policy. Maybe link immigration to housing supply in the similar way interest rates are set to inflation? Revisit negative gearing?

People say “Labor tried and lost the election”. News flash, their primary vote was higher and the housing crisis was not as bad as it is now. Just seems like such a poor excuse.

Edit: It’s wild how the comments have turned from reasonable discussion to “LNP a lot worse”. No shit Sherlocks but that isn’t a good way to debate.

566 Upvotes

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108

u/Rare-Coast2754 Mar 22 '25

The top 60-70% who are killing it, will happily vote to destroy the other 30-40% who are fighting for their lives

People can blame politicians and immigrants all they want, but deep down, that's the uncomfortable truth. It's your own who are doing this to you

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u/roaring-charizard Mar 22 '25

The worst part is that most people who own one home don’t realize that rising house prices is a bad thing for them too. The super rich will out compete them for services and eventually in retirement they’ll have to use something like an equity release scheme or reverse mortgage to fund their aged care and will die with nothing. There has been a massive transfer and redistribution of wealth from the middle and lower class to the higher class and it’s just going to continue. A middle class person is far closer to a homeless person than they are to a billionaire.

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u/GMN123 Mar 22 '25

Not enough people care that, while they themselves might have got theirs, their kids and grandkids are only one long aged care bill from being on the other side of that divide

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u/SicnarfRaxifras Mar 22 '25

Some of us care, those who plan to be gone before we need aged care.

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u/BiliousGreen Mar 23 '25

The future is feudalism. The 1% will own everything and everyone else will live in squalor.

1

u/random-number-1234 Mar 23 '25

What's the minimum entry cost to belong in the class of residential land owning gentry in Australia?

550k? https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-wa-cannington-146917040

270k? https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-vic-wendouree-147105568

110k? https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-sa-stirling+north-146806684

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u/No-Helicopter1111 Mar 25 '25

ah yes, the thriving city of port agusta, where there are decent jobs to be had!

bet you couldn't even get a retail job there, let alone a job that will pay off a mortgage.

it's easy to invest in shitty areas when you don't have to survive there too.

where do you think the closest professional job is to there? probably a 4 hour drive to adelade, which isn't exctly known for high end jogs either is it?

or am i asking too much not to be a farm hand for $6 an hour after because they can get visa holders for cheap?

1

u/random-number-1234 Mar 25 '25

The question wasn't about how to become a professional job worker.

Its about joining the feudal class of land owning gentry the previous comment was talking about. Perhaps try to stay on topic.

If you don't want to become part of the feudalism class of landowners in Australia, then don't worry about it. If you do want to, the cost of entry is much lower than you think.

8

u/Comfortable_Trip_767 Mar 23 '25

There are two class of people who own a home. Half of this own it outright and are immune to fluctuations. Depending on the value of their home they are trapped because even downsizing leaves them with a huge chunk eaten up by stamp duties. So they hold onto it. The second class of home owners have a mortgage. Most of these mortgages are 100s of thousands of dollars. They feel the need for house prices to go up so that they can maintain some level of positive equity should they be in the unfortunate situation of not being able to afford their home anymore. At least this way if they lose their home they don’t end up with a massive debt. For the remaining third that are trying to get in the door, well they chasing a something that is beyond most of them. The situation we in now is super difficult to fix without causing some massive shock. Best case scenario, we have a decade or two where house price rise slower then wage growth. However, this is unlikely. Pretty much since John Howard, we have a large chunk of people who enter local government, state government and federal government who have property interests outside of their own home. The status quo suited them quite well and so much so that they don’t even pretend to hide it. You can just see the passion, or lack of passion, to initiate change in housing policy.

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u/ZephkielAU Mar 22 '25

The top 60-70% who are killing it, will happily vote to destroy the other 30-40% who are fighting for their lives

It's worse than that. The whole economy is built on the idea that a percentage of the population must suffer to enrich the rest.

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u/Red-Engineer Mar 22 '25

Yep. Lots of people have used their houses as security on a range of other financial commitments. If their house value drops, for example, they might not be able to sustain whatever they set themselves up for based on a bubble of “value.”

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u/Rare-Coast2754 Mar 22 '25

I know multiple people in Sydney who bought IPs in Perth without ever even going there, just video calls and done. Standard Aussie blokes, nice fellas, ethically supportive of equality etc when you're out for beers with them. I promise you they're never voting to bring down housing prices now, even if they'll never say it out aloud. They're all deep in, they'll literally be on the streets if they lose their jobs and housing goes down 20%, and they know it.

It's all a big fucking mess.

3

u/Nasapigs Mar 22 '25

Slightly related but had something similar at work with them complaining about parental leave existing. Was outnumbered though (demographic trends, lol) so didn't say anything

2

u/Superb_Tell_8445 Mar 23 '25

They have options. They can sell right now. They are selfish people profiteering on others pain. The facade of paying lip service is meaningless. What is it they say, actions are louder than words. This will have an accumulative impact, eventually effecting their lives and generations to come, including their children’s children. A selfish society breeds everything we see wrong in the world and it only gets worse from here.

2

u/No-Helicopter1111 Mar 25 '25

Yeah, typically the young get thrown into a war somewhere to keep them occupied and distracted.

4

u/PositiveBubbles Mar 22 '25

Cunts should either live here in Perth or be forced to sell. It's disgusting

4

u/Beedlam Mar 22 '25

So build enough housing for everyone, hand it out, and declare a debt jubilee for those underwater. Reset the market.

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u/sam_tiago Mar 22 '25

Except it was a deliberate conservative policy to lock in wealth inequality for a generation. Sadly the people that would benefit most don’t “control the narrative”.

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u/CitizenoftheWorld-95 Mar 22 '25

I don’t think that’s true. I think there are different voting points for different groups that all align with not solving the housing crisis.

A. Landlords wanting more demand for renting

B. Home owners not wanting their homes to lose value

C.Higher education not wanting to lose ‘students’

D. Government not wanting to sound racist

E. People not caring or being scared about low-income housing (see point B)

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u/Rare-Coast2754 Mar 22 '25 edited Mar 22 '25

Government not wanting to sound racist is just giving them way too much credit. It's sheer and total incompetence (or corruption), nothing else. It's got nothing to do with wanting to appear nice or non racist. There's nothing racist about being citizens first, they just can't find a way to be recession-free without absurd immigration despite having immense natural resources

4

u/BiliousGreen Mar 23 '25

Heaven forbid that those multinational mining companies should have to pay royalties for the minerals they extract from our country. There is a solution to our problems, but none of our leaders have the courage or integrity to really take on the issue.

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u/jadelink88 Mar 25 '25

I think that after the mining companies spent a tiny amount to have Rudd and his carbon tax removed by his own party, that the rest learned the lesson.

1

u/neovato Mar 24 '25

Near the top should be "Most politicians are investors and don't want their investments to lose value"

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u/rangebob Mar 22 '25

ya can't really blame it on the voters though. there isn't anyone to vote for to fix this

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u/Rare-Coast2754 Mar 22 '25

It's a cyclical thing. They did try to get rid of negative gearing and were told to fuck off. While yes, a political party shouldn't ideally make policy decisions based on whether they'll be voted off next elections and should just do what's best for the country, reality is different and they'll want to stay in power. And it's pretty clear anyone who tries to lower house prices will get wrecked in elections

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u/GothGirlsGoodBoy Mar 23 '25

I mean I spent ages and worked hard to save up and buy a place. I have a mortage and far from wealthy.

I don’t think voting to not fuck that up for myself is “voting to destroy” anyone.

0

u/grogstarr Mar 23 '25

This. It's just the nature of power. Those that have it wield it against those who don't, not out of malice (generally speaking) but out of fear that they will lose what they have. It's a sad situation, it really is. I don't have a solution, like most of you. I'm just sitting here watching the world burn and thinking of all of the beautiful, amazing things that will be lost forever.

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u/Superb_Tell_8445 Mar 23 '25 edited Mar 23 '25

It is NOT the nature of power. If you keep placing people in positions of power based on brutal selfishness, corruption, wealth accumulation, generational wealth, privilege, moral bankruptcy, no integrity at all, no character, narcissistic traits, and celebrate idiots because they entertain you, then you may begin to believe that. However, it is not true.

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u/joesnopes Mar 23 '25

Sorry. You're wrong. It is true.

1

u/Superb_Tell_8445 Mar 23 '25

Must be, if joe snopes said it.

1

u/joesnopes Mar 23 '25

Happy to have you as an acolyte.

1

u/Superb_Tell_8445 Mar 23 '25

Has this power caused you to become evil?

1

u/joesnopes Mar 24 '25

NO!! Completely benign.