Our CLK Team was recently in attendance at the First National Convention in Hobart when Federal Housing Minister Julie Collins made her first speech since the release of the 2023 Budget and declared “we don’t have enough homes in Australia”.
This did not come as a surprise for anyone in the real estate industry or those involved with Housing Departments across the country. In her speech the Minister announced that the Federal Budget measures were responsible, struck the right balance, and responded to the pressures of the here and now while creating opportunities down the track”.
The Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) hosted the Minister for Housing and REIA President Hayden Groves agreed that “Budget 2023-24 sought to strike a balance between controlling inflation, helping Australians and keeping the economy moving while reaffirming long term housing supply commitments”.
There is much debate circulating about the current housing situation in Australia and the Minister outlined the additional $2 billion of financing for the government’s social and affordable rental housing initiatives, the expansion of the Home Guarantee Scheme eligibility, the 15% increase to maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, and its introduction of legislation to establish a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. Minister Collins declared in her speech that this is the “single biggest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade” and explained that the “real estate industry understands the complexity of Australia’s housing challenges better than most, but frankly, no single policy measure can solve our affordability, rental, social housing and homelessness challenges”.
The Minister was addressing one of the largest gatherings of real estate agents in the country at the annual First National conference and CEO Ray Ellis was on hand to respond stating that “the divergence of views about how the Australian government should manage housing affordability, the chronic undersupply of new homes and the rental crisis are the biggest issues facing Australians and the real estate industry today”.
In addition, Mr Ellis explained that “the Government’s expansion of the criteria enabling access to the First Home Guarantee and the Family Home Guarantee will enable many more Australians to tap into the financial assistance they need to buy a home”.
“Changing the definition of couple so that family members or friends are considered eligible individuals is a realistic response to the way Australians are today wanting to form households,” Mr Ellis said.
“Enabling legal guardians of children to access the Family Home Guarantee clears unreasonable impediments from the system and recognises the significant housing challenges they face,” he said.
In closing Mr Ellis said that “opening the scheme to people who haven’t owned a home in ten years will particularly assist separated and divorced women to regain a foothold in the property market.
“Australia’s inability to meet the demand for new homes remains the single greatest contributor to our rental and affordability crisis. While additional funding for the housing finance arm will help boost the supply of community housing, more needs to be done to reduce the government red tape that constrains development,” he said.
More than 620 agents and delegates took over Hobart for four-day packed agenda covering both finance and investment with Mark Bouris AM, societal issues with Ruff Track co-founder and Big Brother alumni David Graham, 22 First National performance partners, BMW and Australian comedian Dave Hughes.
During the address relating to the 2023 Budget announcement Shadow Housing Minister Michael Sukkar disagreed with his Federal Government counterpart stating that “the Albanese Government’s policies would not be effective in solving Australia’s housing supply issues”.
Mr Sukkar argued that “borrowing $10 billion to invest in the Housing Australia Future Fund to spend the earnings to build more homes is no way to fund affordable and social housing needs”.
He said that “housing initiatives should be fully funded from government revenue and not be aspirations with no guarantee” and questioned the merit of providing foreign build-to-rent developers with tax advantages not available to Australian builders.
These contrasting views from both sides of politics reflect the complexity of Australia's housing challenges, and as real estate agents and property managers grapple with an undersupply of homes for sale and the rental property crisis, it’s absolutely clear that the only thing that both housing and shadow housing ministers agree on is that Australia needs more homes.
Source: The Real Estate Conversation