Australian Housing Affordability Discussion

[JohnK]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Start off small and work your way up. Should be able to upgrade 3-4 times in a lifetime to what you want.

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Start off small and work your way up. Should be able to upgrade 3-4 times in a lifetime to what you want.

The issue I have with this is the cost of stamp duty. You could go through $60-70K quite easily just on SD, with say another $30K in agency fees for selling your old properties. Add in moving costs, and the time costs to find a new home.

It's why I'd prefer a broadly based land tax was applied to replace SD on housing. That way the whole community provides funds to the state govt rather than just the 5-6% who buy a house each year.

NSW is gonna be fracked when the housing market turns as SD dropped 30% from peak to trough during the GFC, and the next downturn will likley cause an even bigger fall in revenue, just as the NSW govt really needs some revenue.

 

[blackcat20]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Stamp duty is astronomical! On a 700k house its around 60k in additional expense. At least looking at a house and land package will potentially save us many thousands of dollars.

 

[Pushka]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Stamp duty is astronomical! On a 700k house its around 60k in additional expense. At least looking at a house and land package will potentially save us many thousands of dollars.

That is insane. What an absolute waste of money. The SA Govt wanted to bring in some kind of levy that all house owners pay each year to replace Stamp Duty. But refused to confirm that people who had already paid their exorbitant stamp duty to be exempted.

 

[QF WP]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Fair call. We're looking at what we can afford and while it's not much I think we can be happy with it.

It's not where we would have chosen to live, but I think somewhere we can make a really great home for ourselves. Just waiting for a phonecall I was promised I would receive this morning...

I'm hoping we can say congratulations soon then - and you can crack a adecent bottle

 

[cove]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

No need to rush into a home purchase too early if you think about it. There is some good advice on paying down a mortgage more quickly in todays Financial Review. All sensible steps to get the debt down.
Remember when GST was introduced and stamp duty was to be removed....well that never happened so buying home property is very expensive compared with the listed price.
I looked up the stamp duty rate in Victoria and the State gets 6% rate over $130,000 for a first home buyer. Time to tip Daniel Andrews out of office.....

 

[RAM]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

No need to rush into a home purchase too early if you think about it. There is some good advice on paying down a mortgage more quickly in todays Financial Review. All sensible steps to get the debt down.
Remember when GST was introduced and stamp duty was to be removed....well that never happened so buying home property is very expensive compared with the listed price.
I looked up the stamp duty rate in Victoria and the State gets 6% rate over $130,000 for a first home buyer. Time to tip Daniel Andrews out of office.....

Doesn't matter what colour is in power at State or federal level - VERY rare for any colour party to remove a tax/charge/levy/rate.

The biggest impost at the State level is the guaranteed rate of return on capital spending for power, gas, water utilities. The financial engineers went to the various state Govts and sold it as (for a large commission and ongoing consultancy fees) a way for States to levy taxes that they are otherwise prohibited from doing so.

Then the financial engineers, earning their consultancy fees and retainers, suggested that as the increased 'daily access' fees for power, gas, water, sewerage, storm water as well as the increased charges from over-building infrastructure (for the power/gas demand that 'really' is increasing despite the data showing it plateaued in 2000 - meant these annuity businesses could be sold for large price/earnings figures which would earn everyone a nice fee and provide a large number of senior bureaucrats and MPs once they leave the PS or get voted out - healthy director's fees as directors on any number of shelf companies set up for each privatisation.

So various millionaires factories clip the ticket multiple times, the increased fees and charges for all utilities puts up the costs of doing business and cost of living for the community as a whole - and the pollies smile. Looking forward to their well-earned post-retirement directorships.

Forgetting climate change for a minute - Australia has the lowest cost fuel supply for power generation (when looking at sunk costs aka existing power plants) yet we pay virtually the highest price for electricity in the world.

Prior to the various stages of Govt 'corporatisation' and privatisation - Australian electricity costs were consistently amongst the lowest in the developed world.

Stamp duty is an obvious charge but the impact of these other imposts is much greater.

 

[JohnK]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Apologies. Stamp duty is a joke if that's the case. Think I paid $3,500-$4,000 back in 1999. It sounds like stamp duty is out of control?

Why continue to penalise those trying to save for their retirement? Makes no sense.

 

[cove]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

WA stamp duty on $1 million first home is less at $42615. You get twice the home in Perth compared with Melbourne so first home buyers are active in the sub $500,000 range.

 

[PDog]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Stamp duty is astronomical! On a 700k house its around 60k in additional expense. At least looking at a house and land package will potentially save us many thousands of dollars.

really? No doubt it's high, but I think $60k of stamp duty gets you a $1.1m home. Are you perhaps including LMI in there? Which is daylight robbery...

 

[Simo]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

It is just a money grab...

The Govts need to make housing affordable so people can escape the renting roundabout..

We need to look to other countries to make it happen for our people.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

That is insane. What an absolute waste of money. The SA Govt wanted to bring in some kind of levy that all house owners pay each year to replace Stamp Duty. But refused to confirm that people who had already paid their exorbitant stamp duty to be exempted.

ACT said they were going to raise rates and get rid of stamp duty, then after a few years it was raise rates and slowly more or less phase out stamp duty. Now rates for me have trebled and stamp duty has dropped a tiny bit for new buyers... They are totally addicted to property taxes as not a lot of other revenue e.g. Commonwealth doesn't pay payroll tax.

 

[TheBOSman]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

It is just a money grab...

The Govts need to make housing affordable so people can escape the renting roundabout..

We need to look to other countries to make it happen for our people.

It's not a whole lot better here in LOTFAP in many, many locations.

 

[cove]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

We need smaller Governments as we are running out of taxpayers. Stamp duty and land tax are the reason why many investors are in the stock market.
This year we are building about 16 bed sits in Perth to help ease the homeless crisis.

 

[whatmeworry]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

RBA governor questions negative gearing, capital gains tax concessions and corporate tax cuts.

Australia could "take the heat out of the housing market" and make home prices more affordable by cutting negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, the head of Australia's Reserve Bank admitted.
On Friday, Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe also questioned the wisdom of a global race to the bottom on corporate tax cuts, in a blow to the Government's claims that the central bank backed its view that cutting corporate tax would create "jobs and growth".

RBA's Philip Lowe takes aim at negative gearing, questions global race to cut corporate taxes - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

ACT said they were going to raise rates and get rid of stamp duty, then after a few years it was raise rates and slowly more or less phase out stamp duty. Now rates for me have trebled and stamp duty has dropped a tiny bit for new buyers... They are totally addicted to property taxes as not a lot of other revenue e.g. Commonwealth doesn't pay payroll tax.

the problem with the vertical fiscal imbalance. the feds get most of the tax revenue, benefit most from the population ponzi, but the states are left with the majority of the costs.

in NSW land SD provides over $7B in revenue. There's over 2M households. Shouldn't be too hard to replace that level of revenue with a broadly based land tax. Provide a land tax exemption for 10 years after paying SD. Instead of 5% of the pop paying SD you share the burden over the entire state. Call it the infrastructure and healthcare levy.

 

[blackcat20]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

really? No doubt it's high, but I think $60k of stamp duty gets you a $1.1m home. Are you perhaps including LMI in there? Which is daylight robbery...

That's what the chart provided by agent selling the house listed but I can see from other sources that its not quite correct. Its still around the $40k mark which is still ridiculous.
We wont be paying anywhere near that, nor will we be paying LMI.

 

[GarrettM]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

No need to rush into a home purchase too early if you think about it. There is some good advice on paying down a mortgage more quickly in todays Financial Review. All sensible steps to get the debt down.

We have had a subject sale offer approved on a house we like in Perth's northern suburbs. The issue is the verbal offer we had on our property never turned into anything on paper, after the buyers opted for another place. Bloody annoying that was.

So we wait to see if tomorrow's home open will bring us another bite, as the deposit we had put aside slightly diminishes over time.

As mentioned by someone else, our ability to service the likely mortgage is not in question. It's just keeping that deposit ready to go, and dealing with changeover fees, and the ridiculous concept of LMI, which are the combined issue.

But we go on...

 

[cove]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

GarrettM it is a long time since we had a home open. We have done it twice in 43 years of marriage. The last house we bought was at an auction so that caused a bit of a scramble with financing it as it was in the height of the 1991 recession. Sure we rattle around in the place now but we are used to that. We have Mrscove's mother staying with us and we have plenty of room.
Good luck with your home open....I hope it is cooler for buyers to get out of their air conditioning.

 

[cove]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Had a look at 6 brand new homes in Gosnells WA and you get between 180 and 220 square metres for about $360,000 to $400,000. Lovely finishes and not selling for the last 3 months. You get a lot of home in Perth at the moment for your money compared with Sydney and Melbourne.