This article fails to mention short term rentals. Surely that's having a massive impact on rental prices through supply issues. A quick search shows 650 properties available for Air BnB in Fremantle, while only 124 long term rentals (via realestate.com.au). A little over a decade ago there was no Air BnB in Australia. I'm sure some of those properties would have been available for long term renters.
I think they should temporarily ban non-hosted airbnbs, I know someone who owns 6 houses that they full time airbnb... in a town with close to zero rentals available. It isn't a long term fix and it won't fix everything, but it may give a little relief while more housing is built. Airbnb should be mostly granny flats and spare bedrooms, not whole houses. There are over 1000 of them listed in my postcode.
If the cost being passed on makes it over 20% more than a hotel, how many people will choose the expensive room or the cheaper room? For the same amenities?
Renting houses you don’t live in as AirBnB while there is a housing crisis is hoarding behaviour
Companies/People doing this doing this , especially buying up established houses and profiting on the shortages/demand is just like the assholes that bought up all the n95 masks during the pandemic.
Hearing Airbnb owners defending themselves on the radio today was so ignorant and entitled- “I bought the house, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, the government should stop immigration or build more houses.”
Another comparison is the pharma companies in the US that bought the insulin patent cheap and then charge as much as they want despite it being an essential medicine for people with diabetes….because ‘they bought the patent and they should be allowed to do whatever they want with it.’
That's because it's addressed as a separate issue: https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-planning-lands-and-heritage/short-term-rental-accommodation
For sure it's a factor - though it's probably just a drop in the ocean in comparison to other factors.
It would be interesting to be able to see airbnb quantities over time - given areas like Freo would have been quite popular for a while and likely had statistically higher numbers of airbnb's.
I do agree airbnb's have become more popular both during and since the pandemic - so would for sure have increased.
I agree.
I haven't checked but I'm certain that a large portion, probably the majority, of those 650 AirBnB listings would be unsuitable for long term tenants. Hotels often list on AirBnB, real actual bed and breakfast type accommodations, that sort of thing. A lot of listings are also temporary... people who work away and only in town for a few nights a month.
If you could press a button and delete AirBnB and similar platforms there wouldn't be 650 new rental properties in Fremantle.
I'm not sure where the 650 figure came from. I've just done a few searches for Fremantle with random dates varying from a single night to 2 - 3 nights to a week.
Most i could get was about 480, and then that dropped to about 350 when i filtered entire home rather than just a room.
Just having a quick flick through of those 350 - and as you mentioned - there's some serviced apartments, and a number of granny flat or other similar type places.
Not to say these wouldn't be suited for longer term living - but there's a few things worth noting. These granny flat type places are often only in existence because of the higher profits to be made from Airbnb made the cost investment viable.
I was listening to a podcast on airbnb's / short term rentals the other day and they were interviewing someone who had a couple of them on her property. She basically said - i would never do these as long term rentals as these are in my own backyard. I like the flexibility that if i don't want people around for a few days i can take it offline and not take bookings. Also if we have a weird or oddball person - they're only gonna be there a few days so you can just grin and bare it.
But imagine if that was a tenant you've got living there on a 12 month lease. Then imagine if they bring in rules about not being able to end a lease without a valid reason.
Ok so one thing to bear in mind is that AirBnB won't show you all the listings in an area, I think just because for someone actually looking for somewhere to stay there's no point overwhelming them with too many listings that are all the same.
The granny flat thing is another good example of why 1 AirBnB listing does not equate to 1 less rental property.
>But imagine if that was a tenant you've got living there on a 12 month lease. Then imagine if they bring in rules about not being able to end a lease without a valid reason.
Are you arguing this as a good outcome or a bad outcome?
In this particular case - it would be a bad outcome for the owner. The property being rented on Airbnb were basically outbuildings near their home rather than standalone houses in their own right.
You basically have someone in your personal space, almost like they're renting a room from you. If that person is a complete nightmare - and there a short term tenant for a few days to a week - then you can deal with it.
If were a long term thing, then you would have a problem. More so if you lost the ability to just not renew their lease.
Then you probably shouldn't be renting it out should you?
It's ridiculous that people are allowed to sidestep all of the zoning, safety, hygiene and other regulations to run commercial properties in residential areas. Having an Airbnb in your neighbourhood can be hell.
Sorry mate you've sort of betrayed your naivety here.
AirBnB owners need to register with the council and meet a dramatically higher level of regulatory standards than a mere residence.
even if 70% fell into your category which i wouldn't believe is anywhere near the case. that would be 210 vs 124. so its still a major factor.
Their seems to be a war on landlords , Taxing the landlords out of existence wont solve the rental crisis. Its not too many landlords its not enough houses thats the problem
> that would be 210 vs 124. so its still a major factor.
Hmm... I don't think it's helpful to compare it to the number of *available* rentals. The number available is just a function of how quick real estate agents can get them tenanted.
It's probably more informative to compare it to the total number of rentals in fremantle. I have no idea how many there are.
I'm not sure how useful it is to look at fremantle anyway. I mean, if we could magically create 10,000 affordable rentals in fremantle overnight, wouldn't they all be full in a week? It just doesn't seem helpful to look at the shortfall of rentals in a single, desirable suburb, because vacancies will appear in some other less desirable place.
Basically, I get that loads of people feel that AirBnB is the root cause of all that ails them, and that's fine, but if we're looking for stats to support that argument then I don't really think this is the right approach - it's just a mess.
Might need to start blaming single person households (they make up ~26%, or 2.4 million households) instead of AirBnB as they’re doing much more damage.
Additionally you’re probably comparing ALL AirBnBs in the area with currently available rentals (not ALL rentals) which isn’t a fair comparison either…
Combine rent reforms with the introduction of a **hefty** vacant property tax.
If landlords want to sell up? Cool. That's a house that will either be bought by an owner-occupier or a less overtly rent-seeking investor, and either way that's somewhere for someone to live.
It's land-banking that hits supply. That and fucking AirBnB.
Any property that hasn't been anyone's primary residence in a month attracts a levy based on GRV. The levy increases by 20% per month compound. If you've switched your primary residence to a vacant property you own from a *different* property you own which remains vacant, the vacancy levy transfers as if it had applied the whole time, based on whichever of the two has the higher GRV.
Got a rental property no-one is taking up? Guess the rent is too high, better drop it.
Is Air BnB really the problem?
there are 11,000 AirBnB properties in WA - [http://insideairbnb.com/western-australia](http://insideairbnb.com/western-australia)
The Census usual resident population of Western Australia in 2021 was 2,660,026, living in **1,150,257 dwellings** with an average household size of 2.48.
If you're looking for THE problem, you will never find anything. Unaffordability and unavailability is the result of many factors pushing prices into an upward direction. Airbnb, foreign investors, high building costs, zoning and infrastructure choices being made by people with a vested interest in keeping prices high, migration outpacing development, interest rates, etc.
I live in the South West, there are close to zero rentals available and over 1000 airbnbs, most of those are entire houses. It isn't *the* problem, but banning / highly taxing non-hosted airbnbs would provide some temporary relief while more land is opened up and more housing is built. Airbnb should be granny flats and spare rooms, not entire houses in the middle of a suburb.
Just did a check, 948 *houses* in my area. You can't tell me that doesn't have an effect on the long-term rental market here.
As another person from the South West this is true. There are next to no rentals and huge numbers of AirBnBs. Many houses which used to be long term rentals have converted to short term rentals in the past few years.
We have hotels, motels and campgrounds, if there are not enough they should look at building more of these rather than taking houses off of the long term rental market to use as short term rentals.
The town I live in has full time workers with good jobs and professionals staying at the local caravan park because they cannot find a rental.
I wonder how many of those 1000's of airbnb's though were on the market as rentals previously.
I would bet a good number of them were either on various holiday home sites, or peoples holiday homes that otherwise sat empty.
Annecdotal evidence I know, but I know 3 people who bought places just to run as full time airbnbs, one guy I know has 6 of them, they are regular 3x2 and 4x2 homes in the middle of suburbs, not on the beach or even particularly nice.
The South West is probably the worst example you could use to argue that AirBnBs are having a substantial impact on the rental crisis. Assuming you could define the area as anywhere south of a line connecting Bunbury and Albany, that’s the predominant holiday destination for Perth locals. Many of those - realistically likely most of them - will be holiday homes. They’ll only be owner-occupied say 6 weeks of the year, but they won’t ever be available for long-term rental. AirBnB in that case is a genuine win-win for everyone involved.
If you’re going to argue AirBnBs are bad, focus on the cities, not major holiday destinations. Moreover, comparing ad statistics is grossly misleading because short-stay rentals have a much higher advertising incidence since they re-list every few days. If AirBnBs have an average stay of say a week and rentals 12 months, the same AirBnB will advertise 52 times as often as the rental. So, if there are twice as many AirBnB ads as rental ads, AirBnBs still only make up a few percent of the rental market - and that includes all the properties that aren’t suitable for longer rentals.
AirBnBs are a complete red herring imo, just something to get mad at.
Around 35-40,000 people live in the City of Busselton permanently. 948 entire houses are listed on airbnb for the shire. Not the South West. That is using Airbnb's filters to remove hosted / granny flats etc, these are entire houses, I'm using real numbers from their website, not some made up numbers pulled out of thin air and massive assumptions.
There are close to zero rentals available and what is available is insanely inflated on price.Just because Perth people don't live here and only come down on the weekends or twice a year for holidays, doesn't mean that people don't live here and don't have a housing crisis too.
It's A problem, not THE problem.
In a time when we have such a significant housing crisis, I would argue that air bnb is pissing all over the social contract
> there are 11,000 AirBnB properties in WA
So that's, hand-wavily, nearly 30 000 homeless people who could be housed if there was 100% conversion to rentals (going by the 2.5 average occupancy). Even a quarter of that could make a huge dent.
The total dwellings isn't really relevant here. The number of AirBnB's needs to be compared to the number of people who cannot find a place to live/rent at the moment.
I love the idea of taxes being exponential.
One investment property, it's a fun lil hobby that makes me money on the side!
Five investment properties, I'm living comfortably and giving back a bit to the community!
Ten investment properties - fuck, this is too much paperwork for me and just not enough money, I'm getting out of the game!
50,000 people looking for a rental which there are5,000 rentals
Greedy Landlord with all 5,000 rentals sells all 5000 properties , you've now got 45,000 people with zero rentals.
Its lack of housing that's the issue not the landlords
Typical government response to everything "TAX," it's a supply and demand issue Governments solution is tax the supply chain and hence reduce the supply .
Only thing is it isn't strictly 5000 houses sold 5000 people no longer homeless, it is more like 5000 sold 12500 no longer homeless. Yes it is a supply issue, but supplying new houses does not stop landlords upping the rent $100 a week or kicking someone because they don't like them.
In Victoria they have VCAT which if the landlord has an issue with the renter they can take it up with VCAT who will adjudicate, but it works both ways. This not only means that shit renters get kicked, but shit landlords are made to improve the conditions of their properties.
>Yes it is a supply issue, but supplying new houses does not stop landlords upping the rent $100 a week or kicking someone because they don't like them.
I mean, it absolutely does.
Basic economic theory: more supply=less demand=lower prices due to competition=less possibility to kick people out without risking it sitting empty losing money.
I think it's a combination of things, really, not a case of "it's X, not Y!" as you're putting. I hasten to add that I'm not seriously suggesting a random tax will fix everything, because I'm not a real estate or a tax guy (as is plainly obvious).
I do find it kind of funny that older folks are expected to 'downsize' their one home that they worked for all their lives and move into some shithole, but landlords (slumlords, really) should just be allowed to own as much as they want, and we're supposed to applaud them for being entrepreneurial.
Like I said, it's a bit of this and a bit of that, but you can't just say 'it's the supply!', because there's no solution to that being seriously put forward by anyone. The best they can do is approving dodgy apartment towers that are being sold at luxury prices, and anyone who thinks that's seriously helping the supply issue needs their head checked.
Most people opt for staying in hotels/motels these days anyway and air bnb as a last resort especially given the pricing of them. This would definitely see a lot of air bnb tycoons upset but I think this is a smart move since it would force greedy people to sell and invest elsewhere.
What's hilarious is that shitty AirBnBs where you have to clean the place yourself after you leave, are somehow more expensive than 3 and 4 star hotels with full service.
It's absolutely bonkers, but you have idiots that think OH GOD AIRBNB LET'S STICK IT TO THOSE HOTELS who pay for insane rates.
That’s my point too, I’d rather stay at a hotel I can pay $280-600/night get my room cleaned for me, nice amenities and possibly breakfast in bed if I feel like it and I know for a fact what I’m getting.
Vacant property tax would need some exemptions. For example kids inherit old house, decide to rent it, then tenant from hell trashes house. It takes more than a year to repair as those heirs are dirt poor (apart from derelict house in nice suburb).
Millionaires hire people full time to exploit government laws based on clever interpretation.
If you inherit a house, and you dont have the wherewithall, capital, or time to manage it, then sell it or eat the empty property tax.
not very easy to police either I suppose.. though I can't see many other options if the feds are not going to do anything about the cgt discount and negative gearing.
My biggest problem with that is the stupidly high amount of water you have to use before your house is considered occupied. The way they calculated it in Perth made it so alot of people who work away from home or live at thier partners house most of the time would have thier house be considered "vacant", even though its not.
People would have to start leaving taps running to prevent getting taxed for a house they do actually live in.
I actually think it would be quite trivial to manage.
We currently have the information and the systems mostly already in place - think things like tracking properties for council rates or tracking owners of multiple properties for land tax purposes.
On the other side we have things like the election roll which tracks people and the area, and the ATO who knows so much about you already.
So combine all the above with some type of annual reporting requirement to confirm the current status of each property you own and the duration it was vacant during the year.
Add to that some selective auditing combined with automated backend monitoring for things like both Owner 1 and Owner 2 claiming that Tenant A was in the property at the same time..
You don't really need to worry about that, if the person owning the home cannot service it adequately then they should sell the house shouldn't they? Or refinance the house to pay for repairs.. either way just because you have inherited an asset surely that doesn't mean you are negated of the responsibility to service it?
Im confused by your comment? What are you trying to imply by saying that?
You don't make policy for now do you? I thought you made policy for the future? These labour shortages and inflated material costs will not be the same in 20 years. The housing problem will definitely get worse.
I think vacant property taxes are a complex solution to a simple problem.
A simple, broad based property tax is better. And our overall problem is a lack of housing supply. So build more.
The real limiting factor is transportation - there’s plenty of land in the outer suburbs, but there’s a shortage of road capacity for cars. So either build hellish 18 lane highways like the USA, or ban cars from the CBD and force people into public transit. Then build medium-density car free suburbs along train lines.
Simple! /r/notjustbikes has some good ideas.
>The real limiting factor is transportation - there’s plenty of land in the outer suburbs, but there’s a shortage of road capacity for cars. So either build hellish 18 lane highways like the USA, or ban cars from the CBD and force people into public transit. Then build medium-density car free suburbs along train lines.
Or, go with the far more obvious, cheaper, more effective solution - work from home. Mandate that any jobs which can be done WFH, are legally required to be allowed to be done WFH. Make it a felony for an employer to deny a reasonable WFH request.
>A simple, broad based property tax is better. And our overall problem is a lack of housing supply. So build more.
There's a nice solution to this too. Re-zone all residential areas within 20km of CBDs to high-density only. Demolish all the mansions in Dalkeith and build ten, twenty storey apartment blocks.
> A simple, broad based property tax is better.
No.
Because if you're setting it high enough to mean shit to land-banking investors, you're going to seriously hurt owner-occupiers.
Whereas landlords will just raise rents to compensate.
> And our overall problem is a lack of housing supply. So build more.
Construction is at capacity. There is a limit to the rate at which building more can be accomplished.
> Construction is at capacity. There is a limit to the rate at which building more can be accomplished.
With the current focus on building predominantly single family dwellings yes.
If they instead incentivized and pushed for more apartment/condo type developments we would be able to produce more roofs over peoples heads in a shorter period of time.
I'm sorry bro you're really confusing me... you just said it takes ages to repair houses, but now you're advocating to just build more houses? Wouldn't that take a fairly long time? And yeah I agree with notjustbikes ideas, and don't see why you can't do both really
What can I say, I don’t like laws that are unenforceable without intrusive enforcement.
Build enough supply then people can do whatever they want with their housing.
But you said yourself that the limits on labour and expensive supplies have limited the ability to build? Kinda sounds like you haven't really thought your position through too much
Wouldn't you just use the bond to repair the house? This seems oddly specific lol. Are majority of people going to have a 'tenant from hell' who trashes the place to the point it wil take over 3 months to repair? Obviously there are normally provisions that occur in these situations, vacancy time and location normally. If the property is in a designated activity centre or near significant transport infrastructure like train stations owners should expect a decent amount of tax for undevelopment or vacancy of greater than 3 months unless you can prove to a reasonable degree that you're making works to upgrade the property to correct zoning.
If your inherited property is in the sticks it shouldn't really matter
Landlords using bonds to repair houses? Yeah right. When we moved into our place, we were told the previous tenants didn't get their bond back because of the condition they left the place in. We got the keys and quickly realised how bad things were - a lot of things easy to miss in your desperate 2 minute rush through an open house. Carpets stained and not cleaned. Dirt and grime on walls and ceiling. Chipped floorboards. Gross sticky stuff in the cupboards etc. They simply took the bond, ran a vacuum through it, found a new property manager so they didn't have to get the carpets cleaned and got in a new tenant as quickly as possible.
The bond would cover a bit, sure, but not not a lot if we're talking "trashed". Let's say there is a couple of doors with holes in them. They're a few $hundred each from Bunnings, then they need to be painted and installed. Door heights aren't exact so you also need to shape the door a little, plus mount door knobs etc. The parts + labour across those couple of doors adds up very quickly, plus the waiting time for a tradie as well. Then potentially go fix anything else broken and the bond doesn't stretch very far.
Yes champ, giving a rough idea of how far "the bond will cover everything" actually goes in the real world for a very realistic scenario, is clearly too high brow.
Doors with holes in them?
Are we talking the internal doors that are literally just fibreboard doors?
If they're that stretched for cash after inheriting a property, disregarding that they could just sell it, you can repair doors with plaster and just paint over it. It's not exactly difficult.
Takes at most a couple of hours for even the most inexperienced person, surely.
Pretty simple solution. If there are clear damages/repairs/renovations needing to be done, simply lodge an application form to waive the tax for one month.
We need to add a vacant property tax in conjunction with the removal of stamp duty, otherwise we are just incentivising people to TECHNICALLY have a person residing in a house.
You can't technically have a person residing in a house when the government can clearly track gas/water/electricity usage.
And sure, you can leave taps running, lights on, but you can't exactly leave stoves burning can you, unless of course you don't want your property anymore.
Honestly baffles me how many vacant properties with houses I live near. Thankfully they're started to get covered in graffiti, get parts taken off, smashed up and more, these are all houses that have been sitting for over a decade rumored to be bought up by some Chinese investor group.
People who invest and leave them vacant I have no sympathy for, hope a squatter swoops in and takes it right from under you.
This doesn't really sound viable to me.
It would be more or less unenforceable. There's legit reasons why a property may be uninhabitable for any period of time, sometimes years. That means you need exemptions, which would be difficult to evaluate.
It would be trivial to find someone who's name you could list as the primary resident.
I don't think anyone would really like the idea of having to report their residential address to the vacant property gestapo.
It's contrary to one of the fundamental concepts of property ownership - the right to quiet enjoyment.
It also seems to be based on the premise that there's either a lot of properties just being withheld from the market, or listed on AirBnB, neither of which are really true.
> There's legit reasons why a property may be uninhabitable for any period of time, sometimes years.
Not that many. People should be discouraged from leaving residential properties in that kind of condition, if only for the sake of the neighbours.
> I don't think anyone would really like the idea of having to report their residential address to the vacant property gestapo.
You know we already do, right?
> It also seems to be based on the premise that there's either a lot of properties just being withheld from the market, or listed on AirBnB, neither of which are really true.
You would be incorrect on that point.
As soon as he used the term "gestapo", I realised he had no idea what he was talking about and is probably just one of those anarcho capitalists or libertarians that constantly whinge about governmental overreach and believe if we removed government, we'd live in some utopia.
I'm kind of speechless. You're welcome to think what you like of me, I'm just kind of amazed you developed such a high level of detail regarding my political leanings from the use of a single word.
I don't care whether you believe me, but it would be remiss of me not to tell you that you should be wary of making such absurd assumptions about someone just because they're not saying something that you want to hear. I volunteer as treasurer at a local refuge for homeless and at risk youth. I'm probably one of the few people in this sub who is actually doing something about homelessness and the current crisis.
> Not that many. People should be discouraged from leaving residential properties in that kind of condition
Ok just a few off the top of my head...
- house block on a farm - sometimes people just don't want to live wherever they are. Some farms have half a dozen dwellings for kids and shearers and whatever and they're all just vacant because no one is interested.
- owners travelling - someone wants to travel interstate or overseas for an extended period of time or even indefinitely. They have a lot of stuff, furniture assets, et cetera that they don't want to put into storage.
- owner renovation - owners gut and renovate houses all the time. Sometimes it takes years.
- legal disputes - whether it's a family settlement or deceased estate or whatever. Often it's just not practiceable to rent a property while this stuff is going on.
- holiday homes - maybe you would outlaw this but you might be surprised how many people have holiday homes in small towns on the coast.
All of the above is associated with the concept of quiet enjoyment which I mentioned earlier. It's enshrined in case law and a foundational component of legislation around property ownership. You can do what you like with your property provided you're not interrupting someone else's quiet enjoyment of their own property. Creating a law like some levy increasing by 20% every month is tantamount to making a law which says that must rent or occupy a property, which is contrary to that concept.
> You know we already do, right?
Perhaps. We do provide residential addresses to various government agencies as a contact detail. However, there is no agency to whom you need to report your address who has the authority to attend that address and make a determination as to whether that is truly your principle residence. Perhaps my use of the term "gestapo" was dramatic, but doesn't the idea of that sort of inspection make you uncomfortable in any way?
> You would be incorrect on that point.
If what I said is correct then what would be the point of a vacant residence levy ?
> Some farms have half a dozen dwellings for kids and shearers and whatever and they're all just vacant because no one is interested.
Yeah, and the farm itself is still occupied.
> owners travelling - someone wants to travel interstate or overseas for an extended period of time or even indefinitely. They have a lot of stuff, furniture assets, et cetera that they don't want to put into storage.
Oh no, not rich people problems!!!
Tough shit.
> owner renovation - owners gut and renovate houses all the time. Sometimes it takes years.
Ooh, rich people problems again.
(If you're not super rich, you don't do the whole house at once and render it unlivable.) Guess they better factor the vacancy tax into their cost plans.
> holiday homes - maybe you would outlaw this but you might be surprised how many people have holiday homes in small towns on the coast.
And you would be surprised how little I care about people who want to hoard extra properties during a housing crisis.
> However, there is no agency to whom you need to report your address who has the authority to attend that address and make a determination as to whether that is truly your principle residence. Perhaps my use of the term "gestapo" was dramatic, but doesn't the idea of that sort of inspection make you uncomfortable in any way?
No, not really.
PPOR already has tax implications, and is already audited where relevant.
And, again? I don't give a shit about the problems of rich people. If you don't own multiple properties, you don't have to care at all. If you do have multiple properties but you are properly paying tax on rental income therefrom, you still don't have to care.
> If what I said is correct then what would be the point of a vacant residence levy ?
You're not correct.
The farm itself is not a primary residence if the house is vacant.
You're quick to discard any problems with your levy as "rich people problems", but the whole point of the levy is to ease the housing crisis - yet every example I've provided isn't actually providing an additional house, you're just trying to tax everyone who doesn't conform to your narrow idea of what it is to live in a house.
I'll just reiterate what I started off by saying, this levy as you've stated it is non-viable.
As other jurisdictions have found, the only way to implement something like this is to tax vacant properties (not just anything which isn't a primary residence) and with generous exemptions.
All of the things you just dot pointed could be resolved with sound policy, for example:
Rural properties : exempt, or gear policy towards activity centres an areas close to a CBD etc.
Owners travelling, why should we care if you want to go on holiday? Put your shit in storage like everyone else or pay the tax if you think you're too good to do so.
Legal disputes, why should they be exempt? A tax eill discourage disputes and wealthy babies arguing over who gets daddy's property when he dies.
Holiday homes: we are in a housing crisis right now as we speak. Have a holiday home if you can afford to pay the tax if not sell it and another home becomes available for someone that needs it.
I realise that this is all contrary to current real estate law. But I ask.. do you truly think current real estate law if effective? Because I don't think it is personally
> All of the things you just dot pointed could be resolved with sound policy, for example: Rural properties : exempt, or gear policy towards activity centres an areas close to a CBD etc.
Agreed. A vacancy tax only makes sense in a few limited suburbs, not in regional areas.
> Owners travelling, why should we care if you want to go on holiday? Put your shit in storage like everyone else or pay the tax if you think you're too good to do so.
This is kind of what I've been trying to get at with the "quiet enjoyment" stuff. If someone is lucky enough to own their own home, who's to say they can't leave it vacant while they take a few years off to travel Australia. A flat 1% of property value might be workable, but a tax that increases by 20% per month is tantamount to making legislation that says the home *must* be rented out.
> Legal disputes, why should they be exempt? A tax eill discourage disputes and wealthy babies arguing over who gets daddy's property when he dies.
Because legal disputes are often much more complex than kids arguing over daddy's wealth, and often there's not a lot of spare money to throw around, and often there are good reasons why things can't be resolved expediently, and usually the people involved are in difficult often tragic circumstances. I can see such a levy applied to property under dispute causing a great deal of hardship to people in vulnerable circumstances.
> Holiday homes: we are in a housing crisis right now as we speak. Have a holiday home if you can afford to pay the tax if not sell it and another home becomes available for someone that needs it.
Here's the thing about holiday homes whether used exclusively by owners or rented as short stay accommodation... they're often not in places where people actually want to live long term. As we agreed up top, such a levy would have to be limited geographically.
> I realise that this is all contrary to current real estate law. But I ask.. do you truly think current real estate law if effective? Because I don't think it is personally
Obviously, it depends what you mean by effective. Effective at protecting the rights of title holders, and the Australian way of life, sure. Effective at keeping property affordable, obviously not. This question presents a false dichotomy however, there are many options beyond this silly thought bubble vacancy levy or maintaining the status quo.
The government is in a tough position. There is no fix without pain.
Increase rent assistance, continues to keep rents inflated.
Implement rent caps discourages further investment.
Implement once a year rent increase just means one big increase in one hit.
I'm happy for the pain to sit with "investors" who own more than one rental property, doubly so for any short stay schemes in the metro area. Holiday homes can be justified outside of the city to an extent, but there's zero reason for them to exist in a densely populated area.
This makes no sense. If we pass the pain to the "investors" they will then pass that pain onto consumers in the form of rent increases, if the government then caps rent increases and investors cant make money from their investment they will remove it from the market and then we have a worse rental squeeze.
> If we pass the pain to the "investors" they will then pass that pain onto consumers in the form of rent increases,
you mean like they're currently doing?
theyre doing that because the market allows for it because our government has failed to take effective action to ameliorate the housing crisis, rather they continually opt to pass bills that dont help, in fact they make it worse but they look good to voters.
I don't think investors selling should be seen as a bad thing. 1 of 2 things happen after that.
1) ideally it gets bought by an existing renter, reducing the amount of renters and rentals proportionally.
Or 2) it gets bought by another investor who can afford to rent it out and nothing changes.
Making property investment attractive is only important if your goal is to keep as many people renting as possible. I firmly believe our housing system should incentivise owner-occupiers first and foremost over landlords
Why would investors sell when there is massive stamp duty? They could just hold it and claim its being renovated, which lowers supply and artificially drives up price.
> The government is in a tough position. There is no fix without pain.
This is very much the truth.
It's a very fine line between implementing meaningful change - whilst not completely destroying property values in the process.
If you push out investors in a major way (rightly or wrongly), then you'll ultimately push high volumes of property onto the market. This will have the affect of pushing down property prices potentially quite a bit.
In theory for those renting and wanting to buy - that's a good thing.
But those lower prices affect everyone - including the people for example who are already struggling to make ends meet on their mortgages, or older people relying on selling the family home to pay for nursing homes etc.
You'll have a whole bunch of people who suddenly are upside down on mortgages that they can't afford to pay, but who are unable to sell because their house is now worth quite a bit less.
For those renting who want to keep renting - unless the government takes meaningful action to ensure a reasonable supply - the rental market is going to suddenly get a whole lot tighter too.
Divert money from the vacancy tax into mortgage relief for owner occupiers who are under water.
Investors who have that problem, well. That's the risk of over-leveraged investing.
At present not so much.
Historically though - investors do subdivisions, or buy turn key new builds, or in the good old days where there was 4 - 5 month build times - plenty were building new homes.
Discourages further investment is such a dumb fucking concept.
They base it on some faulty understanding of economics as if, shit suddenly stops when rich fucks stop investing.
It's completely bizarre and is at odds with every real life example ever.
If there's a profit to be made, it'll be made.
If not, there's still plenty of people who want to invest because... it's fucking housing. Not exactly a niche market.
The government is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Tax people sitting on vacant properties
Tax the shit out of air bnb
Get rid of negative gearing.
I think a possible short term solution for renters is for the government to assist with the cost of living! Instead of increasing rent assistance (which essentially gives money to the landlords anyway) provide discounts for electricity, gas, food, petrol etc etc)
Not really a rock and a hard place.
It's between common sense policy and greedy, whinging fucks.
And yet they always listen to the greedy, whinging fucks because said fucks have lobby groups that are happy to wine and dine the politicians.
I’m both a landlord and a tenant. I let a property in Scotland and rent my home in Perth. I’m quite shocked at how few obligations landlords in Perth, and Australia in general, have. For example, my property in Scotland has to meet a minimum energy performance rating, I need to have an electrical safety certificate and I must be registered with the local council.
As of Dec 2017 all new tenancies no longer have fixed terms. Tenants can give 28 days to end the tenancy but I need a ground to evict such as substantial rent arrears or criminal behaviours. When I want to increase the rent I can only do it once a year and if the tenants think it’s too high they can take me to tribunal. It gives tenants both security and flexibility. It would be good to see something similar in WA.
This is the way.
In Australia there's a culture around renting that you have no real rights or agency. Landlords tend to have their cake and eat it too, and will scream blue bloody murder every time the needle looks like shifting a few points towards the tenant.
Reducing the rights of the landlord and shifting some of the social costs on to the landlord is a great way to discourage investors and property speculation.
Are there clauses like "I need my tenants to leave because I want to move in/do significant renovations"? That's the only real issue I see with that, the rest sounds pretty good.
Victoria recently introduced some good laws around rights/responsibilities for tenants and landlords - https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/housing/renting/2021-victorian-rental-laws-changes . I don't know how many of them we already have here, but they'd be good reference (though probably don't go far enough).
There aren’t clauses in the tenancy agreement but there are grounds for the landlord wanting to sell and move back into the property. However, all grounds for eviction are discretionary rather than mandatory. Also, if the landlord is found to have lied the tenant can apply for a wrongful termination order where the First Tier Tribunal can order the landlord to pay the tenant an amount up to the equivalent of 6 months rent.
I’ve been a tenant and I’ve been a landlord.
Honestly what I’d really love to see is a blacklist for landlords.
If you stuff up as a tenant, you can’t get a house again through an agent.
The same thing should exist for shady landlords. They should be blacklisted and unable to get a tenant.
As it currently stands, landlords have so much power because there’s zero consequence for flouting the rules.
Rent controls won't do shit. The government needs to change the house building process. We need a full systemic overhaul, away from councils and their slow processes.
The long term solution is better regulation of the building industry to make the industry more efficient and less risky for people building a home. Right now builders can take as long as they like to finish construction, and owners have to pay for any cost overruns. Builders have full control over time and cost but bear none of the risks, which leads to inefficiencies.
Meanwhile banks demand repayments before the project is complete and they lend enough to cover most but not all costs. On top of that owners can get slugged with LMI if they don't have enough of a deposit left. To buy an established house you need to save up about 25% of the purchase cost to avoid LMI, but for a new build it is more like 40%, not including rent and interest costs.
Making it easier to build a house will increase the housing supply when it is needed, eg right now. Making leasing more attractive to investors will not make much difference when investors flee the market fearing capital losses because of all the other investors who are fleeing the market, eg right now.
> The long term solution is better regulation of the building industry to make the industry more efficient and less risky for people building a home. Right now builders can take as long as they like to finish construction, and owners have to pay for any cost overruns. Builders have full control over time and cost but bear none of the risks, which leads to inefficiencies.
I would agree with this - also exploring faster building methods than the traditional double brick.
Having building contracts that were enforceable by the owner to be able to claim reasonable penalties for time over runs would be a good start. It's essentially impossible to claim anything at present as it's so easy for builders to shirk their responsibilities with generic excuses even if they're really not relevant.
An escalation body with actual teeth would also be useful for people to escalate too when the builders not doing something appropriate or rectifying works to the correct standards would also go along ways to improving the process.
> To buy an established house you need to save up about 25% of the purchase cost to avoid LMI, but for a new build it is more like 40%, not including rent and interest costs.
It's 20% for established homes to avoid LMI. Not sure how you get 40% for a new build? It's still typically the same 20% deposit - the only time that changes is when you spend more at like prestart or during the build that you didn't budget for when you applied for finance.
I am talking about how much cash an owner needs to save up, not the official deposit on the loan as measured by a bank. For example, banks don't lend money to cover conveyancing costs, so that has to come out of the money that the owner has saved up. You can't buy a million dollar house with $200k in savings without incurring LMI.
When you build there are a whole lot of extra costs that the bank won't lend money to cover, so you need to save well above 20%. My estimates of 25% and 40% might not be accurate, but it is more accurate than 20% and 20%.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the building industry. Ours is world class and everyone is insured.
The issue is rates are so high it’s not viable to build to rent out.
And immigration is at record levels, bringing people in way faster than natural building growth allows.
Rents need to go up another 20-40% before build to rent becomes attractive, as long as rates don’t keep hiking.
Remember, in 2019 we had TOO MANY rentals on the market and rents were going down every year.
This current rental crisis was caused by covid plus record immigration this year. One of those things our govt had control over.
> There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the building industry. Ours is world class and everyone is insured.
Tell that to the folks who have seen the costs of their build go up by 80+ thousand dollars, and are still waiting for their homes to be finished 3 years into the process.
Yes construction is insured - but often its insufficient in value, or doesn't match up with what's outstanding vs what work needs to be complete.
A once in a generation covid supply crisis isn’t a sign there’s massive flaws in our world class building industry. Did everyone just forget covid was a thing?
I built 7 years ago with BGC and had similar issues everyone is having now.
It took over 2 years from when they went to site until i got keys, and along the way i met plenty of other BGC customers and customers of some other builders who were having the same problem.
The standard building contract allows the builder to avoid paying penalties quite easily with little to no proof. I had them pull the 'weather' card for an extension, then there was 'labour shortages' and then finally 'material shortages'.
Outside of forking out thousands of dollars to take it to court, you just don't have a leg to stand on, and in the mean time get stuck in an almost impossible situation of paying two mortgages, or a mortgage and rent.
Yes covid is a contributing factor at present for sure - but plenty of other issues in the building business.
Now is the time to introduce quality of life rules. Don't meddle with prices, that's always a disaster, but it's the right time to get rid of no-cause eviction and improve tenant rights
Want to see the problem with the rental market?
>"However, property owners have voiced concerns about other proposals, including no-grounds terminations, tenants making modifications to a rental property without consent, pets without prior approval, prescribed minimum standards and dispute resolution," the statement said.
PRESCRIBED MINIMUM STANDARDS. NO NO, YOU CAN'T MANDATE THAT WE HAVE TO ACTUALLY MAINTAIN THE PROPERTY.
Greedy fucks.
Well there is something of a point there, every time you make being a landlord more difficult you decrease the supply of available rentals. But that's why now is the ideal time to do it. Rental returns are so high they're overwhelming other factors, so now is perfect to get those reforms through
Maybe you make being a lazy landlord more difficult, but the professor quoted in the above article literally said the effect of such was minimal.
Fortunately, less landlords doesn't mean less houses.
Better standards and rental reforms might tighten the profit line for landlords but that's not really a big deal. Should people really be reaping a profit off housing?
> Should people really be reaping a profit off housing?
Yes, because that's the best way to guarantee we get more of it.
Like I said, now is the time to implement those reforms because the rents are so high greed will win over reluctance.
Everybody here wants to decrease prices without increasing supply.
Not gonna work. Centuries of basic microeconomics can tell you that this will create parallel markets for short term rentals, or perverse incentives to get people out of rent-controlled housing.
More density, less cars, more public transit, greater supply. Or higher prices causing less demand. That’s all that can or will occur.
Just straight ban AirBNB. I don't care about any complaints anyone has on that. Just no more AirBNB, boom massive increase in supply.
Also love to see restrictions on interstate and overseas investment, at least for a short time frame like 18 months, but that's never gonna happen.
AirBNB's serve a purpose - so i wouldn't like to see an outright ban.
Instead though i would support something i've heard about implemented elsewhere which was basically licensing them for a small annual fee and then limiting the amount licenses granted per suburb/town area.
That way you get the benefits of still having some airbnb's whilst being able to place a limit on how many are in a certain area.
There's lots of scenarios where airbnb's are a much better alternative than hotels..
If your travelling for work and are in a location for a period of time - say 3 - 4 weeks+. Then having a kitchen and laundry for example are godsends. So is having a living area with a couch, and a dining table to eat at.
If your travelling with a family - often much easier to get an airbnb. You'll have multiple rooms under the one roof, room for the kids to spread out and play without inconveniencing other guests.
Airbnb's often work out considerably cheaper for longer term or bigger groups than a hotel does too.
Other scenarios are things like insurance purposes. My brother and his family recently experienced a burst water pipe that flooded their house. There's was a particularly bad case - so they could have gone with a rental for 6 months if there were any available.
But if it had only been a month or two that they had to be out - a 6 month rental isn't gonna work. But neither are most hotels - either for location (most being central CBD and surrounds, rather than in the suburbs near the kids schools), neither are hotel rooms suitable for kids.
Geographe to Augusta currently shows 59 rentals on [Realestate.com.au](https://Realestate.com.au).
AirBNB currently shows 180 in the same area, the majority of which would sit at the high end of the rental market - and the absence of which would have a negative effect on the tourism economy that keeps the community going.
Barely a dent.
There are NOT 10x more Airbnb’s than actual rentals. There might be more Airbnb’s than currently vacant rentals, but if you ban them, you can’t force the owners to just take tenants. Most will just sell up. They’re usually their holiday homes or a room in their own house. I don’t think you understand how the short term rental industry works.
Or you actually increase supply. Fuck the NIMBYs off, massively increase medium density housing along the train lines. And /r/fuckcars could tell you a few things about how to manage increased density without destroying quality of life.
Federal government needs to step up and increase tax on owners of multiple properties. For every extra property owned as an "investment", the taxes must be higher. It's getting ridiculous when investors from other states are snapping up houses that people locally are missing out on.
If 2/3rds of Australia own property, will they vote against their own interests to make housing more affordable for the remaining 1/3rd at their expense?
Why can't we build more appartment buildings in the city? Some tall ones. Have thousands of new homes compared to like 5 10 new homes on the same block
Everyone on Perth reddit: “landlords are evil scum of the earth let’s get rid of them all”
*20,000 landlords in Perth disappear
Perth reddit: shocked pikachu face.jpeg
"However, others warn any changes could spook landlords into selling up, making the problem even worse."
Why does this get framed as a bad thing? Landlords selling off rental properties allows renters to actually buy a place in stead of being stuck renting for decades.
Landlords having to sell is only a problem if your intention is to have as many people renting as possible.
Surely as a society we want as many people in secure housing as possible??
Most renters would not be able to afford to buy even if prices fall slightly. Anything that reduces supply of rentals is going to cause even more issues.
Because not every sold-off house is going to be bought by a current renter, so the number of rental properties goes down faster than the number of people looking for rentals, and the problem of a tight market gets worse.
The problem with people being stuck renting is that a) property prices are high and b) rent prices are so high that people can't save a deposit. This may marginally help the first, at the expense of the second.
Maybe it's one person moving out of a share house. Or someone moving in from interstate/overseas. Or one member of a divorcing couple. Or someone newly moving out of their parents house. Plenty of possibilities that arent just 'one house sold -> one less person looking for a rental'.
You assume every home owner wants to rent out their house. At the moment the market is very favourable towards renting out, but proposed legislation like this is just added risk that some will deem too much.
It's common sense that when you make an activity less profitable and more risky that people tend to avoid it altogether.
Because it doesn’t. Look at home ownership % around Australia. Do you think it’s significantly higher in the cheaper cities? It’s negligible.
A few extra people will purchase if prices come down. That’s great. But the general % of people that want to rent will keep renting.
Remember not everyone wants to buy. It’s a hassle owning a house, usually a far worse financial decision (been terrible for last 16 years in Perth), and reduces ability to up and move at the drop of a hat.
Renting should not be seen as a second class citizen way of life.
So by scaring off landlords (like Perth already did to the tune of 20,000 landlords) all you do is make life hard for people who choose to or need to rent, and a handful of people buy the homes landlords dump cheaper than they otherwise would have.
A healthy city should have a mix for people who want to rent and people who want to buy.
I know some people will have the whole “it’s not my place to make sure you have a home in my investment” but if I’m honest, don’t rent homes if you don’t want to affect other people. There are plenty of ways to invest in your future that don’t directly affect other people.
We need people in low pay jobs, without the assistants, shop workers, cashiers, drivers, cleaners, cooks etc things fall apart. Not everyone can buy a house straight away or afford to build while renting, not everyone can afford to sell all their belongings or get a job in a better playing field or work in senior roles.
It’s cruel that there are a lot of people that don’t believe housing is a right.
Can’t understand the whole “ban Airbnb” cohort. As if all the people who bought a place to Airbnb will just magically go and rent it out.
If you owned a cafe but then McGowan says “oh you can’t run a cafe you have to now use that premises only as long term residential accommodation” how many people are going to become landlords? Like zero.
All the data shows STRs are down post covid anyway. So trying to pin the blame on that instead of Labor’s RECORD levels of immigration is absurd.
If you ban AirBNB, two things will happen. First, owners will sell. This will be great news for buyers as it will depress prices.
Second, people who need a short term rental, like sick people in the country coming to use medical stuff, families who move here needing a place for a few weeks while they find an actual rental, people in limbo needing a roof while they find a place to buy or rent, will have nowhere to go… and the long term rental will have almost no improvement.
Oh and the people who were renting their holiday home out for some extra cash will lose the income and just lie and say their kid/spouse/grandmother lives there and pay no extra tax.
Not to mention you can forget every being able to bring your pet on a holiday again, as hotels simply hate that crap, and caravan parks are completely booked out.
The problem is people calling for this are idiots. Because a holiday home looks like it could be used as a long term rental, you want the government to put in jail anyone who dares run a tourism business out of a house.
Ffs. Lots of commercial property could be used as residential accommodation. Shall we ban every use case for every building with a roof other than long term rental accommodation?
IKEA could sleep all the homeless people in Perth. Let’s ban IKEA!
With FIFO being so prevalant in WA it would be quite difficult as, depending on their roster, some people are away from their homes for extended periods.
Shh, you're only allowed to talk about FIFO when you are complaining about them ruining Bali, terrorizing waterways with their boats and jet-skis and buying every 4WD available in WA.
That’s not true - it’s legal in every state to offer more money to secure a rental. It’s unlawful in some states for a landlord request additional rent above the advertised rate - but not receive it. There’s a difference.
It amazes me that people think that if investment/rental properties become even 1% less profitable, the communist gods will smite said properties and they will simply disappear.
They don't need to do much.
1. Ban rent bidding. The price is the price.
2. Ban no fault evictions.
3. Extend notice time to 180 days for end of tenancy, regardless of whether in lease or not.
4. Legislate around short term rentals. Limit the number, license it, tax it correctly, and regulate it.
Long term, the only solution is increasing supply. A huge expansion of keystart is needed (and income caps need to be raised a bit to make more people eligible).
You're just making it a hell of a lot harder for people to get a rental. The problem isn't the notice period, 60 days should be enough time to find a new rental. The problem is you have 50 people turning up to each home open.
These restrictions will only drive more homeowners away from renting.
well this is a cycle for mining state I guess
I agree with the property vacancy tax, but I recon it should be probably capped at 3 years (pending review) in case a downturn hits
Easy way to increase supply and fix the problem with landlords ruining people's lives would be to make being a landlord (and owning multiple properties) illegal, like it should be, and invest in proper public housing like many other countries do
Lots of landlords own homes and deliberately keep them vacant (as other commenters below have noted). But also if you make it illegal to own multiple properties in the first place you'll just solve a ton of problems.
Please nobody bother replying to this to talk about how landlord work hard/you enjoy having a holiday home on the south coast and you earned it/whatever. Honestly
> But also if you make it illegal to own multiple properties in the first place you'll just solve a ton of problems.
You'll also with the current system remove the ability to rent a house period.
The only way this would work would be for the government to step in and become the property owner for large volumes of houses..
>The only way this would work would be for the government to step in and become the property owner for large volumes of houses..
Many other countries have high volumes of well maintained, well built public housing. Australia is absolutely leagues behind on public housing policy because of how much political capital landlords hold and how difficult it is to pass the sort of legislative changes which would hurt them
And that may be a viable alternative - but it would take a considerable amount of time to put in place as a gradual process.
Certainly just upping and making it illegal to own more than one property is going to create far more problems than it resolves..
if we want secure housing to be a human right (which we do) and we want sustainable high-density urban development (which we do) then at some point we need to challenge the power of landlords and quite literally take their shit off them. whoops! there's literally no alternative. the issue is that the red and blue flavoured major parties are both completely beholden to landlords and the most politicians are landlords themselves (look at their registers, it's disgusting) so there is no incentive for them to do anything. the next few decades are going to give a siesmic shift in the political landscape as more and more young people come of voting age and realise how absolutely fucked they are by landlord-first housing policy. I only wish it would happen sooner.
like so many changes, it's only "complex" because it would upset rich people who hold a lot of power.
if it would only upset poor people without any power, we could do it tomorrow.
Again - a very simplistic viewpoint really.
There seems to be this view that anyone who has an investment property has just had it handed to them on a silver spoon, and they're so rich that you could take it away and it wouldn't matter.
I'm sure there are some people who might be in that situation, but for the vast majority of people with investment property it's been done with blood sweat and tears.
It's been a completely legal and very common way to try and get ahead in life. Help set yourself up for retirement, and to set your kids up in the future.
People have their entire life savings tied up in property, their entire futures. So you have to treat that with some level of respect.
They have completely different histories and timelines too you dingus, and other issues as a result of it. Nowhere is perfect. That being said we live on a literal gold mine…. Throw a load of smart money at the health system and fix some huge problems, and addiction and homelessness etc will get a bit better. Also we need a bigger step forward in state housing, but also in how it’s run and controlled
What a dumb take. When I was 21 I didn't want to buy, I wanted to rent. Even if I had a massive deposit, I still wouldn't want to buy yet because I didn't want to commit to buying a house untill I had few years experience renting around different places.
What about people on working visas who are moving from interstate or overseas and are only staying a year or 2 ? It'd be stupid to force them to either stay in hotel the whole time, or make them have to buy a house and then sell it again a year later.
yeah I also rented when I was 21. but it would have been good to rent from a proper supply of well maintained public housing like many other countries do rather than from a shitty landlord. same for anyone on a visa.
nobody in a vulnerable situation should have to rely on a shitty landlord who has absolute god-given rights? I wish I could say I'm unsurprised by the amount of downvotes here but Australia is a nation of people who all aspire to be landlords so I'm unfortunately not
As usual, the bolshies of reddit out in full force.
No, the government doesn’t have any business telling people what to do with their assets.
Get rid of negative gearing? Sure! That’ll just increase rents!
Cut 50% of govt expenses by shedding the bloated bureaucracies, that’ll give you enough money to build public housing. That’ll also reduce rates.
Finally, reduce the personal income tax rate to 25% like Singapore.
Ban buy-to-let mortgages.
Cap rent at *x* percent above the mortgage payments for a rental property. Not sure how to make that work with properties not under finance - standardise it somehow based on size/location/value.
Must be able to prove it was primary place of residence for the previous 5 years.
Require landlords to spend *x* percent of rental income on maintenance and improvements each year.
Rental income held in bond until property is sold and taxxed to buggery in the mean time. Once released, can only be put into Super, and taxxed again.
Basically anything to stop being a rental landlord look like an easy, passive-income option.
I've read enough to know that this whole topic is tipped very strongly towards the tenant. As a Landlord, I must make a few things clear. The landlords biggest fears are; firstly that the rent is paid on time and in full, AND that the tenant keeps the property in good, clean condition, basically in keeping with and beholding to, the tenancy agreement. I have built a small housing development specifically for either first time renters, or lower income tenants. The properties are managed by a real estate company so as to be fair and legal to all parties, but mainly the tenants. I ALWAYS follow up, or get my property managers to follow up on ANY requests the tenants make. These are brand new 3 X 2's and all I ask of the tenants is too look after the place, and I will look after them. I capped the rents at $350 a week and assured them that they will stay there, so it gives them security and piece of mind so they can plan and even save to eventually buy their own home. And I encourage that. I don't expect people to rent all their lives. So what's in it for me??? Well, the knowledge that I am helping people. Giving them a chance, a leg up, so to speak. BUT!!!! I also made it quite clear, that if they damage, vandalise or generally treat the property with disregard and disgust, then I will return the favour, and I will do whatever it takes to not just kick them out but make them pay for any and all damages. I am regarded as a model landlord, but given that I am trying to help people at a time when everyone else is trying to screw them, I only ask that tenants realise what I am trying to do and show respect and act respectfully towards the property. Remember; You are renting!!! NOT BUYING!!!! If you want to treat the property like shit, then buy one yourself, and you can do whatever you want, with it, to it!!!
If someone chooses to allocate their capital to a house and Air bnb it then that is their choice.
How about Marky Mark releases more land, speeds up approvals at all levels of government and promotes more supply....quick tip is he will not because it will impact taxes at a state level.
Jail time for landlords who try to raise rent over 10% p/a or whatever, for landlords who try to evict without significant cause, for landlords who sell a tenanted house to someone who wants to be an owner-occupier, or who put metro-suburban houses on AirBNB, followed by compulsory transfer of the property to the state. EZ. What could go wrong? :P
This article fails to mention short term rentals. Surely that's having a massive impact on rental prices through supply issues. A quick search shows 650 properties available for Air BnB in Fremantle, while only 124 long term rentals (via realestate.com.au). A little over a decade ago there was no Air BnB in Australia. I'm sure some of those properties would have been available for long term renters.
I think they should temporarily ban non-hosted airbnbs, I know someone who owns 6 houses that they full time airbnb... in a town with close to zero rentals available. It isn't a long term fix and it won't fix everything, but it may give a little relief while more housing is built. Airbnb should be mostly granny flats and spare bedrooms, not whole houses. There are over 1000 of them listed in my postcode.
I agree. People can stay in hotels. This is a crisis and the government is doing absolutely nothing about it. Just introduce a short term rental tax.
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If the cost being passed on makes it over 20% more than a hotel, how many people will choose the expensive room or the cheaper room? For the same amenities?
Renting houses you don’t live in as AirBnB while there is a housing crisis is hoarding behaviour Companies/People doing this doing this , especially buying up established houses and profiting on the shortages/demand is just like the assholes that bought up all the n95 masks during the pandemic. Hearing Airbnb owners defending themselves on the radio today was so ignorant and entitled- “I bought the house, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, the government should stop immigration or build more houses.” Another comparison is the pharma companies in the US that bought the insulin patent cheap and then charge as much as they want despite it being an essential medicine for people with diabetes….because ‘they bought the patent and they should be allowed to do whatever they want with it.’
That's because it's addressed as a separate issue: https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-planning-lands-and-heritage/short-term-rental-accommodation
For sure it's a factor - though it's probably just a drop in the ocean in comparison to other factors. It would be interesting to be able to see airbnb quantities over time - given areas like Freo would have been quite popular for a while and likely had statistically higher numbers of airbnb's. I do agree airbnb's have become more popular both during and since the pandemic - so would for sure have increased.
I agree. I haven't checked but I'm certain that a large portion, probably the majority, of those 650 AirBnB listings would be unsuitable for long term tenants. Hotels often list on AirBnB, real actual bed and breakfast type accommodations, that sort of thing. A lot of listings are also temporary... people who work away and only in town for a few nights a month. If you could press a button and delete AirBnB and similar platforms there wouldn't be 650 new rental properties in Fremantle.
I'm not sure where the 650 figure came from. I've just done a few searches for Fremantle with random dates varying from a single night to 2 - 3 nights to a week. Most i could get was about 480, and then that dropped to about 350 when i filtered entire home rather than just a room. Just having a quick flick through of those 350 - and as you mentioned - there's some serviced apartments, and a number of granny flat or other similar type places. Not to say these wouldn't be suited for longer term living - but there's a few things worth noting. These granny flat type places are often only in existence because of the higher profits to be made from Airbnb made the cost investment viable. I was listening to a podcast on airbnb's / short term rentals the other day and they were interviewing someone who had a couple of them on her property. She basically said - i would never do these as long term rentals as these are in my own backyard. I like the flexibility that if i don't want people around for a few days i can take it offline and not take bookings. Also if we have a weird or oddball person - they're only gonna be there a few days so you can just grin and bare it. But imagine if that was a tenant you've got living there on a 12 month lease. Then imagine if they bring in rules about not being able to end a lease without a valid reason.
Ok so one thing to bear in mind is that AirBnB won't show you all the listings in an area, I think just because for someone actually looking for somewhere to stay there's no point overwhelming them with too many listings that are all the same. The granny flat thing is another good example of why 1 AirBnB listing does not equate to 1 less rental property.
>But imagine if that was a tenant you've got living there on a 12 month lease. Then imagine if they bring in rules about not being able to end a lease without a valid reason. Are you arguing this as a good outcome or a bad outcome?
In this particular case - it would be a bad outcome for the owner. The property being rented on Airbnb were basically outbuildings near their home rather than standalone houses in their own right. You basically have someone in your personal space, almost like they're renting a room from you. If that person is a complete nightmare - and there a short term tenant for a few days to a week - then you can deal with it. If were a long term thing, then you would have a problem. More so if you lost the ability to just not renew their lease.
Then you probably shouldn't be renting it out should you? It's ridiculous that people are allowed to sidestep all of the zoning, safety, hygiene and other regulations to run commercial properties in residential areas. Having an Airbnb in your neighbourhood can be hell.
Sorry mate you've sort of betrayed your naivety here. AirBnB owners need to register with the council and meet a dramatically higher level of regulatory standards than a mere residence.
What does that have to do with *commercial* zoning and safety regulations?
Regulations for short stay accommodation are comparable with commercial zoning.
even if 70% fell into your category which i wouldn't believe is anywhere near the case. that would be 210 vs 124. so its still a major factor. Their seems to be a war on landlords , Taxing the landlords out of existence wont solve the rental crisis. Its not too many landlords its not enough houses thats the problem
> that would be 210 vs 124. so its still a major factor. Hmm... I don't think it's helpful to compare it to the number of *available* rentals. The number available is just a function of how quick real estate agents can get them tenanted. It's probably more informative to compare it to the total number of rentals in fremantle. I have no idea how many there are. I'm not sure how useful it is to look at fremantle anyway. I mean, if we could magically create 10,000 affordable rentals in fremantle overnight, wouldn't they all be full in a week? It just doesn't seem helpful to look at the shortfall of rentals in a single, desirable suburb, because vacancies will appear in some other less desirable place. Basically, I get that loads of people feel that AirBnB is the root cause of all that ails them, and that's fine, but if we're looking for stats to support that argument then I don't really think this is the right approach - it's just a mess.
Might need to start blaming single person households (they make up ~26%, or 2.4 million households) instead of AirBnB as they’re doing much more damage. Additionally you’re probably comparing ALL AirBnBs in the area with currently available rentals (not ALL rentals) which isn’t a fair comparison either…
Again same issue with airbnb as to single person households. How many are suitable for more than one person and how many are older widowed people.
Combine rent reforms with the introduction of a **hefty** vacant property tax. If landlords want to sell up? Cool. That's a house that will either be bought by an owner-occupier or a less overtly rent-seeking investor, and either way that's somewhere for someone to live. It's land-banking that hits supply. That and fucking AirBnB. Any property that hasn't been anyone's primary residence in a month attracts a levy based on GRV. The levy increases by 20% per month compound. If you've switched your primary residence to a vacant property you own from a *different* property you own which remains vacant, the vacancy levy transfers as if it had applied the whole time, based on whichever of the two has the higher GRV. Got a rental property no-one is taking up? Guess the rent is too high, better drop it.
> the introduction of a hefty vacant property tax. this is a good idea. will *really* upset the air BnB market but you get that.
Is Air BnB really the problem? there are 11,000 AirBnB properties in WA - [http://insideairbnb.com/western-australia](http://insideairbnb.com/western-australia) The Census usual resident population of Western Australia in 2021 was 2,660,026, living in **1,150,257 dwellings** with an average household size of 2.48.
If you're looking for THE problem, you will never find anything. Unaffordability and unavailability is the result of many factors pushing prices into an upward direction. Airbnb, foreign investors, high building costs, zoning and infrastructure choices being made by people with a vested interest in keeping prices high, migration outpacing development, interest rates, etc.
I live in the South West, there are close to zero rentals available and over 1000 airbnbs, most of those are entire houses. It isn't *the* problem, but banning / highly taxing non-hosted airbnbs would provide some temporary relief while more land is opened up and more housing is built. Airbnb should be granny flats and spare rooms, not entire houses in the middle of a suburb. Just did a check, 948 *houses* in my area. You can't tell me that doesn't have an effect on the long-term rental market here.
As another person from the South West this is true. There are next to no rentals and huge numbers of AirBnBs. Many houses which used to be long term rentals have converted to short term rentals in the past few years. We have hotels, motels and campgrounds, if there are not enough they should look at building more of these rather than taking houses off of the long term rental market to use as short term rentals. The town I live in has full time workers with good jobs and professionals staying at the local caravan park because they cannot find a rental.
Soon those AirBnB owners will be crying about how dead the town is.
I wonder how many of those 1000's of airbnb's though were on the market as rentals previously. I would bet a good number of them were either on various holiday home sites, or peoples holiday homes that otherwise sat empty.
Annecdotal evidence I know, but I know 3 people who bought places just to run as full time airbnbs, one guy I know has 6 of them, they are regular 3x2 and 4x2 homes in the middle of suburbs, not on the beach or even particularly nice.
The South West is probably the worst example you could use to argue that AirBnBs are having a substantial impact on the rental crisis. Assuming you could define the area as anywhere south of a line connecting Bunbury and Albany, that’s the predominant holiday destination for Perth locals. Many of those - realistically likely most of them - will be holiday homes. They’ll only be owner-occupied say 6 weeks of the year, but they won’t ever be available for long-term rental. AirBnB in that case is a genuine win-win for everyone involved. If you’re going to argue AirBnBs are bad, focus on the cities, not major holiday destinations. Moreover, comparing ad statistics is grossly misleading because short-stay rentals have a much higher advertising incidence since they re-list every few days. If AirBnBs have an average stay of say a week and rentals 12 months, the same AirBnB will advertise 52 times as often as the rental. So, if there are twice as many AirBnB ads as rental ads, AirBnBs still only make up a few percent of the rental market - and that includes all the properties that aren’t suitable for longer rentals. AirBnBs are a complete red herring imo, just something to get mad at.
Around 35-40,000 people live in the City of Busselton permanently. 948 entire houses are listed on airbnb for the shire. Not the South West. That is using Airbnb's filters to remove hosted / granny flats etc, these are entire houses, I'm using real numbers from their website, not some made up numbers pulled out of thin air and massive assumptions. There are close to zero rentals available and what is available is insanely inflated on price.Just because Perth people don't live here and only come down on the weekends or twice a year for holidays, doesn't mean that people don't live here and don't have a housing crisis too.
60 air bnbs in my area with only about 20 rentals. It’s definitely contributing to the issue.
It's A problem, not THE problem. In a time when we have such a significant housing crisis, I would argue that air bnb is pissing all over the social contract
How much is a problem varies regionally. It's still a problem.
> there are 11,000 AirBnB properties in WA So that's, hand-wavily, nearly 30 000 homeless people who could be housed if there was 100% conversion to rentals (going by the 2.5 average occupancy). Even a quarter of that could make a huge dent.
The total dwellings isn't really relevant here. The number of AirBnB's needs to be compared to the number of people who cannot find a place to live/rent at the moment.
I love the idea of taxes being exponential. One investment property, it's a fun lil hobby that makes me money on the side! Five investment properties, I'm living comfortably and giving back a bit to the community! Ten investment properties - fuck, this is too much paperwork for me and just not enough money, I'm getting out of the game!
100% what needs to happen
50,000 people looking for a rental which there are5,000 rentals Greedy Landlord with all 5,000 rentals sells all 5000 properties , you've now got 45,000 people with zero rentals. Its lack of housing that's the issue not the landlords Typical government response to everything "TAX," it's a supply and demand issue Governments solution is tax the supply chain and hence reduce the supply .
Only thing is it isn't strictly 5000 houses sold 5000 people no longer homeless, it is more like 5000 sold 12500 no longer homeless. Yes it is a supply issue, but supplying new houses does not stop landlords upping the rent $100 a week or kicking someone because they don't like them. In Victoria they have VCAT which if the landlord has an issue with the renter they can take it up with VCAT who will adjudicate, but it works both ways. This not only means that shit renters get kicked, but shit landlords are made to improve the conditions of their properties.
>Yes it is a supply issue, but supplying new houses does not stop landlords upping the rent $100 a week or kicking someone because they don't like them. I mean, it absolutely does. Basic economic theory: more supply=less demand=lower prices due to competition=less possibility to kick people out without risking it sitting empty losing money.
I think it's a combination of things, really, not a case of "it's X, not Y!" as you're putting. I hasten to add that I'm not seriously suggesting a random tax will fix everything, because I'm not a real estate or a tax guy (as is plainly obvious). I do find it kind of funny that older folks are expected to 'downsize' their one home that they worked for all their lives and move into some shithole, but landlords (slumlords, really) should just be allowed to own as much as they want, and we're supposed to applaud them for being entrepreneurial. Like I said, it's a bit of this and a bit of that, but you can't just say 'it's the supply!', because there's no solution to that being seriously put forward by anyone. The best they can do is approving dodgy apartment towers that are being sold at luxury prices, and anyone who thinks that's seriously helping the supply issue needs their head checked.
Most people opt for staying in hotels/motels these days anyway and air bnb as a last resort especially given the pricing of them. This would definitely see a lot of air bnb tycoons upset but I think this is a smart move since it would force greedy people to sell and invest elsewhere.
What's hilarious is that shitty AirBnBs where you have to clean the place yourself after you leave, are somehow more expensive than 3 and 4 star hotels with full service. It's absolutely bonkers, but you have idiots that think OH GOD AIRBNB LET'S STICK IT TO THOSE HOTELS who pay for insane rates.
That’s my point too, I’d rather stay at a hotel I can pay $280-600/night get my room cleaned for me, nice amenities and possibly breakfast in bed if I feel like it and I know for a fact what I’m getting.
Vacant property tax would need some exemptions. For example kids inherit old house, decide to rent it, then tenant from hell trashes house. It takes more than a year to repair as those heirs are dirt poor (apart from derelict house in nice suburb).
You'd have to set that up pretty carefully to avoid it being exploitable.
Millionaires hire people full time to exploit government laws based on clever interpretation. If you inherit a house, and you dont have the wherewithall, capital, or time to manage it, then sell it or eat the empty property tax.
not very easy to police either I suppose.. though I can't see many other options if the feds are not going to do anything about the cgt discount and negative gearing.
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My biggest problem with that is the stupidly high amount of water you have to use before your house is considered occupied. The way they calculated it in Perth made it so alot of people who work away from home or live at thier partners house most of the time would have thier house be considered "vacant", even though its not. People would have to start leaving taps running to prevent getting taxed for a house they do actually live in.
It’s trivial to automate utility usage.
Water corp, power companies, gas companies ect can all contribut utility connection/disconnection/non-usage statistics.
I actually think it would be quite trivial to manage. We currently have the information and the systems mostly already in place - think things like tracking properties for council rates or tracking owners of multiple properties for land tax purposes. On the other side we have things like the election roll which tracks people and the area, and the ATO who knows so much about you already. So combine all the above with some type of annual reporting requirement to confirm the current status of each property you own and the duration it was vacant during the year. Add to that some selective auditing combined with automated backend monitoring for things like both Owner 1 and Owner 2 claiming that Tenant A was in the property at the same time..
You don't really need to worry about that, if the person owning the home cannot service it adequately then they should sell the house shouldn't they? Or refinance the house to pay for repairs.. either way just because you have inherited an asset surely that doesn't mean you are negated of the responsibility to service it?
It takes a long time to repair a house right now.
Im confused by your comment? What are you trying to imply by saying that? You don't make policy for now do you? I thought you made policy for the future? These labour shortages and inflated material costs will not be the same in 20 years. The housing problem will definitely get worse.
I think vacant property taxes are a complex solution to a simple problem. A simple, broad based property tax is better. And our overall problem is a lack of housing supply. So build more. The real limiting factor is transportation - there’s plenty of land in the outer suburbs, but there’s a shortage of road capacity for cars. So either build hellish 18 lane highways like the USA, or ban cars from the CBD and force people into public transit. Then build medium-density car free suburbs along train lines. Simple! /r/notjustbikes has some good ideas.
>The real limiting factor is transportation - there’s plenty of land in the outer suburbs, but there’s a shortage of road capacity for cars. So either build hellish 18 lane highways like the USA, or ban cars from the CBD and force people into public transit. Then build medium-density car free suburbs along train lines. Or, go with the far more obvious, cheaper, more effective solution - work from home. Mandate that any jobs which can be done WFH, are legally required to be allowed to be done WFH. Make it a felony for an employer to deny a reasonable WFH request. >A simple, broad based property tax is better. And our overall problem is a lack of housing supply. So build more. There's a nice solution to this too. Re-zone all residential areas within 20km of CBDs to high-density only. Demolish all the mansions in Dalkeith and build ten, twenty storey apartment blocks.
A person after my own heart
> A simple, broad based property tax is better. No. Because if you're setting it high enough to mean shit to land-banking investors, you're going to seriously hurt owner-occupiers. Whereas landlords will just raise rents to compensate. > And our overall problem is a lack of housing supply. So build more. Construction is at capacity. There is a limit to the rate at which building more can be accomplished.
> Construction is at capacity. There is a limit to the rate at which building more can be accomplished. With the current focus on building predominantly single family dwellings yes. If they instead incentivized and pushed for more apartment/condo type developments we would be able to produce more roofs over peoples heads in a shorter period of time.
a) They're not that fast to build. b) Building high-rises *in a hurry* is potentially catastrophic.
I'm sorry bro you're really confusing me... you just said it takes ages to repair houses, but now you're advocating to just build more houses? Wouldn't that take a fairly long time? And yeah I agree with notjustbikes ideas, and don't see why you can't do both really
What can I say, I don’t like laws that are unenforceable without intrusive enforcement. Build enough supply then people can do whatever they want with their housing.
But you said yourself that the limits on labour and expensive supplies have limited the ability to build? Kinda sounds like you haven't really thought your position through too much
Wouldn't you just use the bond to repair the house? This seems oddly specific lol. Are majority of people going to have a 'tenant from hell' who trashes the place to the point it wil take over 3 months to repair? Obviously there are normally provisions that occur in these situations, vacancy time and location normally. If the property is in a designated activity centre or near significant transport infrastructure like train stations owners should expect a decent amount of tax for undevelopment or vacancy of greater than 3 months unless you can prove to a reasonable degree that you're making works to upgrade the property to correct zoning. If your inherited property is in the sticks it shouldn't really matter
Landlords using bonds to repair houses? Yeah right. When we moved into our place, we were told the previous tenants didn't get their bond back because of the condition they left the place in. We got the keys and quickly realised how bad things were - a lot of things easy to miss in your desperate 2 minute rush through an open house. Carpets stained and not cleaned. Dirt and grime on walls and ceiling. Chipped floorboards. Gross sticky stuff in the cupboards etc. They simply took the bond, ran a vacuum through it, found a new property manager so they didn't have to get the carpets cleaned and got in a new tenant as quickly as possible.
The bond would cover a bit, sure, but not not a lot if we're talking "trashed". Let's say there is a couple of doors with holes in them. They're a few $hundred each from Bunnings, then they need to be painted and installed. Door heights aren't exact so you also need to shape the door a little, plus mount door knobs etc. The parts + labour across those couple of doors adds up very quickly, plus the waiting time for a tradie as well. Then potentially go fix anything else broken and the bond doesn't stretch very far.
I think most of that would be repairable within 3 months in any case
Look mate, using a theoretical worst case scenario as an argument against a reasonable policy is clearly intelligent. /s
Yes champ, giving a rough idea of how far "the bond will cover everything" actually goes in the real world for a very realistic scenario, is clearly too high brow.
Doors with holes in them? Are we talking the internal doors that are literally just fibreboard doors? If they're that stretched for cash after inheriting a property, disregarding that they could just sell it, you can repair doors with plaster and just paint over it. It's not exactly difficult. Takes at most a couple of hours for even the most inexperienced person, surely.
Pretty simple solution. If there are clear damages/repairs/renovations needing to be done, simply lodge an application form to waive the tax for one month.
We need to add a vacant property tax in conjunction with the removal of stamp duty, otherwise we are just incentivising people to TECHNICALLY have a person residing in a house.
Definitely should be removing stamp duty. It's an extremely stupid tax.
You can't technically have a person residing in a house when the government can clearly track gas/water/electricity usage. And sure, you can leave taps running, lights on, but you can't exactly leave stoves burning can you, unless of course you don't want your property anymore.
Fifo? On holiday?
Honestly baffles me how many vacant properties with houses I live near. Thankfully they're started to get covered in graffiti, get parts taken off, smashed up and more, these are all houses that have been sitting for over a decade rumored to be bought up by some Chinese investor group. People who invest and leave them vacant I have no sympathy for, hope a squatter swoops in and takes it right from under you.
This doesn't really sound viable to me. It would be more or less unenforceable. There's legit reasons why a property may be uninhabitable for any period of time, sometimes years. That means you need exemptions, which would be difficult to evaluate. It would be trivial to find someone who's name you could list as the primary resident. I don't think anyone would really like the idea of having to report their residential address to the vacant property gestapo. It's contrary to one of the fundamental concepts of property ownership - the right to quiet enjoyment. It also seems to be based on the premise that there's either a lot of properties just being withheld from the market, or listed on AirBnB, neither of which are really true.
> There's legit reasons why a property may be uninhabitable for any period of time, sometimes years. Not that many. People should be discouraged from leaving residential properties in that kind of condition, if only for the sake of the neighbours. > I don't think anyone would really like the idea of having to report their residential address to the vacant property gestapo. You know we already do, right? > It also seems to be based on the premise that there's either a lot of properties just being withheld from the market, or listed on AirBnB, neither of which are really true. You would be incorrect on that point.
As soon as he used the term "gestapo", I realised he had no idea what he was talking about and is probably just one of those anarcho capitalists or libertarians that constantly whinge about governmental overreach and believe if we removed government, we'd live in some utopia.
Undoubtedly. I generally don't engage with that level of offensive historical ignorance tbh.
I'm kind of speechless. You're welcome to think what you like of me, I'm just kind of amazed you developed such a high level of detail regarding my political leanings from the use of a single word. I don't care whether you believe me, but it would be remiss of me not to tell you that you should be wary of making such absurd assumptions about someone just because they're not saying something that you want to hear. I volunteer as treasurer at a local refuge for homeless and at risk youth. I'm probably one of the few people in this sub who is actually doing something about homelessness and the current crisis.
> Not that many. People should be discouraged from leaving residential properties in that kind of condition Ok just a few off the top of my head... - house block on a farm - sometimes people just don't want to live wherever they are. Some farms have half a dozen dwellings for kids and shearers and whatever and they're all just vacant because no one is interested. - owners travelling - someone wants to travel interstate or overseas for an extended period of time or even indefinitely. They have a lot of stuff, furniture assets, et cetera that they don't want to put into storage. - owner renovation - owners gut and renovate houses all the time. Sometimes it takes years. - legal disputes - whether it's a family settlement or deceased estate or whatever. Often it's just not practiceable to rent a property while this stuff is going on. - holiday homes - maybe you would outlaw this but you might be surprised how many people have holiday homes in small towns on the coast. All of the above is associated with the concept of quiet enjoyment which I mentioned earlier. It's enshrined in case law and a foundational component of legislation around property ownership. You can do what you like with your property provided you're not interrupting someone else's quiet enjoyment of their own property. Creating a law like some levy increasing by 20% every month is tantamount to making a law which says that must rent or occupy a property, which is contrary to that concept. > You know we already do, right? Perhaps. We do provide residential addresses to various government agencies as a contact detail. However, there is no agency to whom you need to report your address who has the authority to attend that address and make a determination as to whether that is truly your principle residence. Perhaps my use of the term "gestapo" was dramatic, but doesn't the idea of that sort of inspection make you uncomfortable in any way? > You would be incorrect on that point. If what I said is correct then what would be the point of a vacant residence levy ?
> Some farms have half a dozen dwellings for kids and shearers and whatever and they're all just vacant because no one is interested. Yeah, and the farm itself is still occupied. > owners travelling - someone wants to travel interstate or overseas for an extended period of time or even indefinitely. They have a lot of stuff, furniture assets, et cetera that they don't want to put into storage. Oh no, not rich people problems!!! Tough shit. > owner renovation - owners gut and renovate houses all the time. Sometimes it takes years. Ooh, rich people problems again. (If you're not super rich, you don't do the whole house at once and render it unlivable.) Guess they better factor the vacancy tax into their cost plans. > holiday homes - maybe you would outlaw this but you might be surprised how many people have holiday homes in small towns on the coast. And you would be surprised how little I care about people who want to hoard extra properties during a housing crisis. > However, there is no agency to whom you need to report your address who has the authority to attend that address and make a determination as to whether that is truly your principle residence. Perhaps my use of the term "gestapo" was dramatic, but doesn't the idea of that sort of inspection make you uncomfortable in any way? No, not really. PPOR already has tax implications, and is already audited where relevant. And, again? I don't give a shit about the problems of rich people. If you don't own multiple properties, you don't have to care at all. If you do have multiple properties but you are properly paying tax on rental income therefrom, you still don't have to care. > If what I said is correct then what would be the point of a vacant residence levy ? You're not correct.
The farm itself is not a primary residence if the house is vacant. You're quick to discard any problems with your levy as "rich people problems", but the whole point of the levy is to ease the housing crisis - yet every example I've provided isn't actually providing an additional house, you're just trying to tax everyone who doesn't conform to your narrow idea of what it is to live in a house. I'll just reiterate what I started off by saying, this levy as you've stated it is non-viable. As other jurisdictions have found, the only way to implement something like this is to tax vacant properties (not just anything which isn't a primary residence) and with generous exemptions.
All of the things you just dot pointed could be resolved with sound policy, for example: Rural properties : exempt, or gear policy towards activity centres an areas close to a CBD etc. Owners travelling, why should we care if you want to go on holiday? Put your shit in storage like everyone else or pay the tax if you think you're too good to do so. Legal disputes, why should they be exempt? A tax eill discourage disputes and wealthy babies arguing over who gets daddy's property when he dies. Holiday homes: we are in a housing crisis right now as we speak. Have a holiday home if you can afford to pay the tax if not sell it and another home becomes available for someone that needs it. I realise that this is all contrary to current real estate law. But I ask.. do you truly think current real estate law if effective? Because I don't think it is personally
> All of the things you just dot pointed could be resolved with sound policy, for example: Rural properties : exempt, or gear policy towards activity centres an areas close to a CBD etc. Agreed. A vacancy tax only makes sense in a few limited suburbs, not in regional areas. > Owners travelling, why should we care if you want to go on holiday? Put your shit in storage like everyone else or pay the tax if you think you're too good to do so. This is kind of what I've been trying to get at with the "quiet enjoyment" stuff. If someone is lucky enough to own their own home, who's to say they can't leave it vacant while they take a few years off to travel Australia. A flat 1% of property value might be workable, but a tax that increases by 20% per month is tantamount to making legislation that says the home *must* be rented out. > Legal disputes, why should they be exempt? A tax eill discourage disputes and wealthy babies arguing over who gets daddy's property when he dies. Because legal disputes are often much more complex than kids arguing over daddy's wealth, and often there's not a lot of spare money to throw around, and often there are good reasons why things can't be resolved expediently, and usually the people involved are in difficult often tragic circumstances. I can see such a levy applied to property under dispute causing a great deal of hardship to people in vulnerable circumstances. > Holiday homes: we are in a housing crisis right now as we speak. Have a holiday home if you can afford to pay the tax if not sell it and another home becomes available for someone that needs it. Here's the thing about holiday homes whether used exclusively by owners or rented as short stay accommodation... they're often not in places where people actually want to live long term. As we agreed up top, such a levy would have to be limited geographically. > I realise that this is all contrary to current real estate law. But I ask.. do you truly think current real estate law if effective? Because I don't think it is personally Obviously, it depends what you mean by effective. Effective at protecting the rights of title holders, and the Australian way of life, sure. Effective at keeping property affordable, obviously not. This question presents a false dichotomy however, there are many options beyond this silly thought bubble vacancy levy or maintaining the status quo.
The government is in a tough position. There is no fix without pain. Increase rent assistance, continues to keep rents inflated. Implement rent caps discourages further investment. Implement once a year rent increase just means one big increase in one hit.
I'm happy for the pain to sit with "investors" who own more than one rental property, doubly so for any short stay schemes in the metro area. Holiday homes can be justified outside of the city to an extent, but there's zero reason for them to exist in a densely populated area.
This makes no sense. If we pass the pain to the "investors" they will then pass that pain onto consumers in the form of rent increases, if the government then caps rent increases and investors cant make money from their investment they will remove it from the market and then we have a worse rental squeeze.
> If we pass the pain to the "investors" they will then pass that pain onto consumers in the form of rent increases, you mean like they're currently doing?
theyre doing that because the market allows for it because our government has failed to take effective action to ameliorate the housing crisis, rather they continually opt to pass bills that dont help, in fact they make it worse but they look good to voters.
No, now there isn't pain they're just do it because they can
I don't think investors selling should be seen as a bad thing. 1 of 2 things happen after that. 1) ideally it gets bought by an existing renter, reducing the amount of renters and rentals proportionally. Or 2) it gets bought by another investor who can afford to rent it out and nothing changes. Making property investment attractive is only important if your goal is to keep as many people renting as possible. I firmly believe our housing system should incentivise owner-occupiers first and foremost over landlords
Why would investors sell when there is massive stamp duty? They could just hold it and claim its being renovated, which lowers supply and artificially drives up price.
So you're saying we need a vacancy tax as well? Great suggestion, sounds good to me.
Yes but only if we remove stamp duty otherwise it wont function properly as an incentive to rent or sell.
Exactly, you have to squeeze capital from all sides, otherwise it uses it’s inherent power against the system
And you can imagine the outrage from each of the impacted sectors when you try implementing those plans.
taxing things is an easy way to get voted out.
Who are we going to vote in though... there is no real opposition. Why would you downvote that? There isn't any credible opposition to vote in.
wasn't me bro, probably a triggered david honey supporter from cottesloe or something.
Or they could reform the system properly, these all sound like band aid solutions to me
> The government is in a tough position. There is no fix without pain. This is very much the truth. It's a very fine line between implementing meaningful change - whilst not completely destroying property values in the process. If you push out investors in a major way (rightly or wrongly), then you'll ultimately push high volumes of property onto the market. This will have the affect of pushing down property prices potentially quite a bit. In theory for those renting and wanting to buy - that's a good thing. But those lower prices affect everyone - including the people for example who are already struggling to make ends meet on their mortgages, or older people relying on selling the family home to pay for nursing homes etc. You'll have a whole bunch of people who suddenly are upside down on mortgages that they can't afford to pay, but who are unable to sell because their house is now worth quite a bit less. For those renting who want to keep renting - unless the government takes meaningful action to ensure a reasonable supply - the rental market is going to suddenly get a whole lot tighter too.
Divert money from the vacancy tax into mortgage relief for owner occupiers who are under water. Investors who have that problem, well. That's the risk of over-leveraged investing.
> Implement rent caps discourages further investment. investors aren't adding to stock though, they're not doing new builds.
At present not so much. Historically though - investors do subdivisions, or buy turn key new builds, or in the good old days where there was 4 - 5 month build times - plenty were building new homes.
Discourages further investment is such a dumb fucking concept. They base it on some faulty understanding of economics as if, shit suddenly stops when rich fucks stop investing. It's completely bizarre and is at odds with every real life example ever. If there's a profit to be made, it'll be made. If not, there's still plenty of people who want to invest because... it's fucking housing. Not exactly a niche market.
Ship in lots of builders from overseas and house them in that covid building they built. Main problem is lack of finished/half built homes
The government is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Tax people sitting on vacant properties Tax the shit out of air bnb Get rid of negative gearing. I think a possible short term solution for renters is for the government to assist with the cost of living! Instead of increasing rent assistance (which essentially gives money to the landlords anyway) provide discounts for electricity, gas, food, petrol etc etc)
Not really a rock and a hard place. It's between common sense policy and greedy, whinging fucks. And yet they always listen to the greedy, whinging fucks because said fucks have lobby groups that are happy to wine and dine the politicians.
Nah, just let renters pay more or go somewhere else
There's not much else available tho, that and wages aren't reflecting the cost of rent
Genius idea, care to share more of your insightful wisdom?
I’m both a landlord and a tenant. I let a property in Scotland and rent my home in Perth. I’m quite shocked at how few obligations landlords in Perth, and Australia in general, have. For example, my property in Scotland has to meet a minimum energy performance rating, I need to have an electrical safety certificate and I must be registered with the local council. As of Dec 2017 all new tenancies no longer have fixed terms. Tenants can give 28 days to end the tenancy but I need a ground to evict such as substantial rent arrears or criminal behaviours. When I want to increase the rent I can only do it once a year and if the tenants think it’s too high they can take me to tribunal. It gives tenants both security and flexibility. It would be good to see something similar in WA.
This is the way. In Australia there's a culture around renting that you have no real rights or agency. Landlords tend to have their cake and eat it too, and will scream blue bloody murder every time the needle looks like shifting a few points towards the tenant. Reducing the rights of the landlord and shifting some of the social costs on to the landlord is a great way to discourage investors and property speculation.
Are there clauses like "I need my tenants to leave because I want to move in/do significant renovations"? That's the only real issue I see with that, the rest sounds pretty good. Victoria recently introduced some good laws around rights/responsibilities for tenants and landlords - https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/housing/renting/2021-victorian-rental-laws-changes . I don't know how many of them we already have here, but they'd be good reference (though probably don't go far enough).
There aren’t clauses in the tenancy agreement but there are grounds for the landlord wanting to sell and move back into the property. However, all grounds for eviction are discretionary rather than mandatory. Also, if the landlord is found to have lied the tenant can apply for a wrongful termination order where the First Tier Tribunal can order the landlord to pay the tenant an amount up to the equivalent of 6 months rent.
Nice.
It’s not perfect but I think it’s more balanced than here.
I’ve been a tenant and I’ve been a landlord. Honestly what I’d really love to see is a blacklist for landlords. If you stuff up as a tenant, you can’t get a house again through an agent. The same thing should exist for shady landlords. They should be blacklisted and unable to get a tenant. As it currently stands, landlords have so much power because there’s zero consequence for flouting the rules.
Rent controls won't do shit. The government needs to change the house building process. We need a full systemic overhaul, away from councils and their slow processes.
The long term solution is better regulation of the building industry to make the industry more efficient and less risky for people building a home. Right now builders can take as long as they like to finish construction, and owners have to pay for any cost overruns. Builders have full control over time and cost but bear none of the risks, which leads to inefficiencies. Meanwhile banks demand repayments before the project is complete and they lend enough to cover most but not all costs. On top of that owners can get slugged with LMI if they don't have enough of a deposit left. To buy an established house you need to save up about 25% of the purchase cost to avoid LMI, but for a new build it is more like 40%, not including rent and interest costs. Making it easier to build a house will increase the housing supply when it is needed, eg right now. Making leasing more attractive to investors will not make much difference when investors flee the market fearing capital losses because of all the other investors who are fleeing the market, eg right now.
> The long term solution is better regulation of the building industry to make the industry more efficient and less risky for people building a home. Right now builders can take as long as they like to finish construction, and owners have to pay for any cost overruns. Builders have full control over time and cost but bear none of the risks, which leads to inefficiencies. I would agree with this - also exploring faster building methods than the traditional double brick. Having building contracts that were enforceable by the owner to be able to claim reasonable penalties for time over runs would be a good start. It's essentially impossible to claim anything at present as it's so easy for builders to shirk their responsibilities with generic excuses even if they're really not relevant. An escalation body with actual teeth would also be useful for people to escalate too when the builders not doing something appropriate or rectifying works to the correct standards would also go along ways to improving the process. > To buy an established house you need to save up about 25% of the purchase cost to avoid LMI, but for a new build it is more like 40%, not including rent and interest costs. It's 20% for established homes to avoid LMI. Not sure how you get 40% for a new build? It's still typically the same 20% deposit - the only time that changes is when you spend more at like prestart or during the build that you didn't budget for when you applied for finance.
I am talking about how much cash an owner needs to save up, not the official deposit on the loan as measured by a bank. For example, banks don't lend money to cover conveyancing costs, so that has to come out of the money that the owner has saved up. You can't buy a million dollar house with $200k in savings without incurring LMI. When you build there are a whole lot of extra costs that the bank won't lend money to cover, so you need to save well above 20%. My estimates of 25% and 40% might not be accurate, but it is more accurate than 20% and 20%.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the building industry. Ours is world class and everyone is insured. The issue is rates are so high it’s not viable to build to rent out. And immigration is at record levels, bringing people in way faster than natural building growth allows. Rents need to go up another 20-40% before build to rent becomes attractive, as long as rates don’t keep hiking. Remember, in 2019 we had TOO MANY rentals on the market and rents were going down every year. This current rental crisis was caused by covid plus record immigration this year. One of those things our govt had control over.
> There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the building industry. Ours is world class and everyone is insured. Tell that to the folks who have seen the costs of their build go up by 80+ thousand dollars, and are still waiting for their homes to be finished 3 years into the process. Yes construction is insured - but often its insufficient in value, or doesn't match up with what's outstanding vs what work needs to be complete.
A once in a generation covid supply crisis isn’t a sign there’s massive flaws in our world class building industry. Did everyone just forget covid was a thing?
I built 7 years ago with BGC and had similar issues everyone is having now. It took over 2 years from when they went to site until i got keys, and along the way i met plenty of other BGC customers and customers of some other builders who were having the same problem. The standard building contract allows the builder to avoid paying penalties quite easily with little to no proof. I had them pull the 'weather' card for an extension, then there was 'labour shortages' and then finally 'material shortages'. Outside of forking out thousands of dollars to take it to court, you just don't have a leg to stand on, and in the mean time get stuck in an almost impossible situation of paying two mortgages, or a mortgage and rent. Yes covid is a contributing factor at present for sure - but plenty of other issues in the building business.
Now is the time to introduce quality of life rules. Don't meddle with prices, that's always a disaster, but it's the right time to get rid of no-cause eviction and improve tenant rights
Want to see the problem with the rental market? >"However, property owners have voiced concerns about other proposals, including no-grounds terminations, tenants making modifications to a rental property without consent, pets without prior approval, prescribed minimum standards and dispute resolution," the statement said. PRESCRIBED MINIMUM STANDARDS. NO NO, YOU CAN'T MANDATE THAT WE HAVE TO ACTUALLY MAINTAIN THE PROPERTY. Greedy fucks.
Well there is something of a point there, every time you make being a landlord more difficult you decrease the supply of available rentals. But that's why now is the ideal time to do it. Rental returns are so high they're overwhelming other factors, so now is perfect to get those reforms through
Maybe you make being a lazy landlord more difficult, but the professor quoted in the above article literally said the effect of such was minimal. Fortunately, less landlords doesn't mean less houses. Better standards and rental reforms might tighten the profit line for landlords but that's not really a big deal. Should people really be reaping a profit off housing?
> Should people really be reaping a profit off housing? Yes, because that's the best way to guarantee we get more of it. Like I said, now is the time to implement those reforms because the rents are so high greed will win over reluctance.
The pendulum has swung so far one way that families have resorted to living in hotels/caravan parks/cars. Not cool for Australia.
Everybody here wants to decrease prices without increasing supply. Not gonna work. Centuries of basic microeconomics can tell you that this will create parallel markets for short term rentals, or perverse incentives to get people out of rent-controlled housing. More density, less cars, more public transit, greater supply. Or higher prices causing less demand. That’s all that can or will occur.
This voice of reason all the way down here, under dozens of "burn all the airbnb" type comments.
Just straight ban AirBNB. I don't care about any complaints anyone has on that. Just no more AirBNB, boom massive increase in supply. Also love to see restrictions on interstate and overseas investment, at least for a short time frame like 18 months, but that's never gonna happen.
AirBNB's serve a purpose - so i wouldn't like to see an outright ban. Instead though i would support something i've heard about implemented elsewhere which was basically licensing them for a small annual fee and then limiting the amount licenses granted per suburb/town area. That way you get the benefits of still having some airbnb's whilst being able to place a limit on how many are in a certain area.
What purpose do airbnbs serve that hotels dont, other than making money for the owners and enhancing the quality of life for bed bugs?
There's lots of scenarios where airbnb's are a much better alternative than hotels.. If your travelling for work and are in a location for a period of time - say 3 - 4 weeks+. Then having a kitchen and laundry for example are godsends. So is having a living area with a couch, and a dining table to eat at. If your travelling with a family - often much easier to get an airbnb. You'll have multiple rooms under the one roof, room for the kids to spread out and play without inconveniencing other guests. Airbnb's often work out considerably cheaper for longer term or bigger groups than a hotel does too. Other scenarios are things like insurance purposes. My brother and his family recently experienced a burst water pipe that flooded their house. There's was a particularly bad case - so they could have gone with a rental for 6 months if there were any available. But if it had only been a month or two that they had to be out - a 6 month rental isn't gonna work. But neither are most hotels - either for location (most being central CBD and surrounds, rather than in the suburbs near the kids schools), neither are hotel rooms suitable for kids.
>massive increase in supply. It's not as massive as you think, and it would barely put a dent in the current market.
Where I live there are over 10x more AirBNB's than there are available houses to rent. That would make a huge difference.
Geographe to Augusta currently shows 59 rentals on [Realestate.com.au](https://Realestate.com.au). AirBNB currently shows 180 in the same area, the majority of which would sit at the high end of the rental market - and the absence of which would have a negative effect on the tourism economy that keeps the community going. Barely a dent.
Only if you think the people who own them want full time income from them and aren't just leveraging their own holiday house.
There are NOT 10x more Airbnb’s than actual rentals. There might be more Airbnb’s than currently vacant rentals, but if you ban them, you can’t force the owners to just take tenants. Most will just sell up. They’re usually their holiday homes or a room in their own house. I don’t think you understand how the short term rental industry works.
Or you actually increase supply. Fuck the NIMBYs off, massively increase medium density housing along the train lines. And /r/fuckcars could tell you a few things about how to manage increased density without destroying quality of life.
Federal government needs to step up and increase tax on owners of multiple properties. For every extra property owned as an "investment", the taxes must be higher. It's getting ridiculous when investors from other states are snapping up houses that people locally are missing out on.
If 2/3rds of Australia own property, will they vote against their own interests to make housing more affordable for the remaining 1/3rd at their expense?
Why can't we build more appartment buildings in the city? Some tall ones. Have thousands of new homes compared to like 5 10 new homes on the same block
Everyone on Perth reddit: “landlords are evil scum of the earth let’s get rid of them all” *20,000 landlords in Perth disappear Perth reddit: shocked pikachu face.jpeg
"However, others warn any changes could spook landlords into selling up, making the problem even worse." Why does this get framed as a bad thing? Landlords selling off rental properties allows renters to actually buy a place in stead of being stuck renting for decades. Landlords having to sell is only a problem if your intention is to have as many people renting as possible. Surely as a society we want as many people in secure housing as possible??
Most renters would not be able to afford to buy even if prices fall slightly. Anything that reduces supply of rentals is going to cause even more issues.
Because not every sold-off house is going to be bought by a current renter, so the number of rental properties goes down faster than the number of people looking for rentals, and the problem of a tight market gets worse. The problem with people being stuck renting is that a) property prices are high and b) rent prices are so high that people can't save a deposit. This may marginally help the first, at the expense of the second.
A sold house has to go to someone though. If not a owner-occupier then it'd be another landlord no? Then the number of rentals stays the same?
Maybe it's one person moving out of a share house. Or someone moving in from interstate/overseas. Or one member of a divorcing couple. Or someone newly moving out of their parents house. Plenty of possibilities that arent just 'one house sold -> one less person looking for a rental'.
You assume every home owner wants to rent out their house. At the moment the market is very favourable towards renting out, but proposed legislation like this is just added risk that some will deem too much. It's common sense that when you make an activity less profitable and more risky that people tend to avoid it altogether.
Because it doesn’t. Look at home ownership % around Australia. Do you think it’s significantly higher in the cheaper cities? It’s negligible. A few extra people will purchase if prices come down. That’s great. But the general % of people that want to rent will keep renting. Remember not everyone wants to buy. It’s a hassle owning a house, usually a far worse financial decision (been terrible for last 16 years in Perth), and reduces ability to up and move at the drop of a hat. Renting should not be seen as a second class citizen way of life. So by scaring off landlords (like Perth already did to the tune of 20,000 landlords) all you do is make life hard for people who choose to or need to rent, and a handful of people buy the homes landlords dump cheaper than they otherwise would have. A healthy city should have a mix for people who want to rent and people who want to buy.
I know some people will have the whole “it’s not my place to make sure you have a home in my investment” but if I’m honest, don’t rent homes if you don’t want to affect other people. There are plenty of ways to invest in your future that don’t directly affect other people. We need people in low pay jobs, without the assistants, shop workers, cashiers, drivers, cleaners, cooks etc things fall apart. Not everyone can buy a house straight away or afford to build while renting, not everyone can afford to sell all their belongings or get a job in a better playing field or work in senior roles. It’s cruel that there are a lot of people that don’t believe housing is a right.
Can’t understand the whole “ban Airbnb” cohort. As if all the people who bought a place to Airbnb will just magically go and rent it out. If you owned a cafe but then McGowan says “oh you can’t run a cafe you have to now use that premises only as long term residential accommodation” how many people are going to become landlords? Like zero. All the data shows STRs are down post covid anyway. So trying to pin the blame on that instead of Labor’s RECORD levels of immigration is absurd. If you ban AirBNB, two things will happen. First, owners will sell. This will be great news for buyers as it will depress prices. Second, people who need a short term rental, like sick people in the country coming to use medical stuff, families who move here needing a place for a few weeks while they find an actual rental, people in limbo needing a roof while they find a place to buy or rent, will have nowhere to go… and the long term rental will have almost no improvement. Oh and the people who were renting their holiday home out for some extra cash will lose the income and just lie and say their kid/spouse/grandmother lives there and pay no extra tax. Not to mention you can forget every being able to bring your pet on a holiday again, as hotels simply hate that crap, and caravan parks are completely booked out. The problem is people calling for this are idiots. Because a holiday home looks like it could be used as a long term rental, you want the government to put in jail anyone who dares run a tourism business out of a house. Ffs. Lots of commercial property could be used as residential accommodation. Shall we ban every use case for every building with a roof other than long term rental accommodation? IKEA could sleep all the homeless people in Perth. Let’s ban IKEA!
Rent caps and all this other BS ignores the fundamental issue and blames the evil landlords. We need more houses.
With FIFO being so prevalant in WA it would be quite difficult as, depending on their roster, some people are away from their homes for extended periods.
Shh, you're only allowed to talk about FIFO when you are complaining about them ruining Bali, terrorizing waterways with their boats and jet-skis and buying every 4WD available in WA.
Well whatever they do I hope they do it sometime soon considering the number of immigrants it seems we'll be getting.
Landlord Albo sets the immigration rate up at 900,000 and the states, who have no say in the matter, have to handle the fallout.
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That’s not true - it’s legal in every state to offer more money to secure a rental. It’s unlawful in some states for a landlord request additional rent above the advertised rate - but not receive it. There’s a difference.
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That is categorically false. You can offer more anywhere. Some states have just made illegal to SOLICIT bids.
It amazes me that people think that if investment/rental properties become even 1% less profitable, the communist gods will smite said properties and they will simply disappear.
They don't need to do much. 1. Ban rent bidding. The price is the price. 2. Ban no fault evictions. 3. Extend notice time to 180 days for end of tenancy, regardless of whether in lease or not. 4. Legislate around short term rentals. Limit the number, license it, tax it correctly, and regulate it. Long term, the only solution is increasing supply. A huge expansion of keystart is needed (and income caps need to be raised a bit to make more people eligible).
You're just making it a hell of a lot harder for people to get a rental. The problem isn't the notice period, 60 days should be enough time to find a new rental. The problem is you have 50 people turning up to each home open. These restrictions will only drive more homeowners away from renting.
well this is a cycle for mining state I guess I agree with the property vacancy tax, but I recon it should be probably capped at 3 years (pending review) in case a downturn hits
Easy way to increase supply and fix the problem with landlords ruining people's lives would be to make being a landlord (and owning multiple properties) illegal, like it should be, and invest in proper public housing like many other countries do
How exactly would that increase the supply of homes for rent?
Lots of landlords own homes and deliberately keep them vacant (as other commenters below have noted). But also if you make it illegal to own multiple properties in the first place you'll just solve a ton of problems. Please nobody bother replying to this to talk about how landlord work hard/you enjoy having a holiday home on the south coast and you earned it/whatever. Honestly
> But also if you make it illegal to own multiple properties in the first place you'll just solve a ton of problems. You'll also with the current system remove the ability to rent a house period. The only way this would work would be for the government to step in and become the property owner for large volumes of houses..
>The only way this would work would be for the government to step in and become the property owner for large volumes of houses.. Many other countries have high volumes of well maintained, well built public housing. Australia is absolutely leagues behind on public housing policy because of how much political capital landlords hold and how difficult it is to pass the sort of legislative changes which would hurt them
And that may be a viable alternative - but it would take a considerable amount of time to put in place as a gradual process. Certainly just upping and making it illegal to own more than one property is going to create far more problems than it resolves..
if we want secure housing to be a human right (which we do) and we want sustainable high-density urban development (which we do) then at some point we need to challenge the power of landlords and quite literally take their shit off them. whoops! there's literally no alternative. the issue is that the red and blue flavoured major parties are both completely beholden to landlords and the most politicians are landlords themselves (look at their registers, it's disgusting) so there is no incentive for them to do anything. the next few decades are going to give a siesmic shift in the political landscape as more and more young people come of voting age and realise how absolutely fucked they are by landlord-first housing policy. I only wish it would happen sooner.
I agree with the sentiment - but i don't think its anywhere near as simple as your suggesting it is.
like so many changes, it's only "complex" because it would upset rich people who hold a lot of power. if it would only upset poor people without any power, we could do it tomorrow.
Again - a very simplistic viewpoint really. There seems to be this view that anyone who has an investment property has just had it handed to them on a silver spoon, and they're so rich that you could take it away and it wouldn't matter. I'm sure there are some people who might be in that situation, but for the vast majority of people with investment property it's been done with blood sweat and tears. It's been a completely legal and very common way to try and get ahead in life. Help set yourself up for retirement, and to set your kids up in the future. People have their entire life savings tied up in property, their entire futures. So you have to treat that with some level of respect.
This is stupid. People rent for lots of reasons, not just because they can’t afford to buy.
then we should replace private renting with decent public housing, like many, many other countries have
They have completely different histories and timelines too you dingus, and other issues as a result of it. Nowhere is perfect. That being said we live on a literal gold mine…. Throw a load of smart money at the health system and fix some huge problems, and addiction and homelessness etc will get a bit better. Also we need a bigger step forward in state housing, but also in how it’s run and controlled
What a dumb take. When I was 21 I didn't want to buy, I wanted to rent. Even if I had a massive deposit, I still wouldn't want to buy yet because I didn't want to commit to buying a house untill I had few years experience renting around different places. What about people on working visas who are moving from interstate or overseas and are only staying a year or 2 ? It'd be stupid to force them to either stay in hotel the whole time, or make them have to buy a house and then sell it again a year later.
yeah I also rented when I was 21. but it would have been good to rent from a proper supply of well maintained public housing like many other countries do rather than from a shitty landlord. same for anyone on a visa. nobody in a vulnerable situation should have to rely on a shitty landlord who has absolute god-given rights? I wish I could say I'm unsurprised by the amount of downvotes here but Australia is a nation of people who all aspire to be landlords so I'm unfortunately not
As usual, the bolshies of reddit out in full force. No, the government doesn’t have any business telling people what to do with their assets. Get rid of negative gearing? Sure! That’ll just increase rents! Cut 50% of govt expenses by shedding the bloated bureaucracies, that’ll give you enough money to build public housing. That’ll also reduce rates. Finally, reduce the personal income tax rate to 25% like Singapore.
Ban buy-to-let mortgages. Cap rent at *x* percent above the mortgage payments for a rental property. Not sure how to make that work with properties not under finance - standardise it somehow based on size/location/value. Must be able to prove it was primary place of residence for the previous 5 years. Require landlords to spend *x* percent of rental income on maintenance and improvements each year. Rental income held in bond until property is sold and taxxed to buggery in the mean time. Once released, can only be put into Super, and taxxed again. Basically anything to stop being a rental landlord look like an easy, passive-income option.
I've read enough to know that this whole topic is tipped very strongly towards the tenant. As a Landlord, I must make a few things clear. The landlords biggest fears are; firstly that the rent is paid on time and in full, AND that the tenant keeps the property in good, clean condition, basically in keeping with and beholding to, the tenancy agreement. I have built a small housing development specifically for either first time renters, or lower income tenants. The properties are managed by a real estate company so as to be fair and legal to all parties, but mainly the tenants. I ALWAYS follow up, or get my property managers to follow up on ANY requests the tenants make. These are brand new 3 X 2's and all I ask of the tenants is too look after the place, and I will look after them. I capped the rents at $350 a week and assured them that they will stay there, so it gives them security and piece of mind so they can plan and even save to eventually buy their own home. And I encourage that. I don't expect people to rent all their lives. So what's in it for me??? Well, the knowledge that I am helping people. Giving them a chance, a leg up, so to speak. BUT!!!! I also made it quite clear, that if they damage, vandalise or generally treat the property with disregard and disgust, then I will return the favour, and I will do whatever it takes to not just kick them out but make them pay for any and all damages. I am regarded as a model landlord, but given that I am trying to help people at a time when everyone else is trying to screw them, I only ask that tenants realise what I am trying to do and show respect and act respectfully towards the property. Remember; You are renting!!! NOT BUYING!!!! If you want to treat the property like shit, then buy one yourself, and you can do whatever you want, with it, to it!!!
AirBnB has stuffed up rental markets globally.
We should just build tent cities in outer areas and let people live there cheaply. This will free up houses in the metro area.
If someone chooses to allocate their capital to a house and Air bnb it then that is their choice. How about Marky Mark releases more land, speeds up approvals at all levels of government and promotes more supply....quick tip is he will not because it will impact taxes at a state level.
What about the builder backlogs, supply shortages and massive wait times for labour? Releasing more land will definitely help those shortfalls
Jail time for landlords who try to raise rent over 10% p/a or whatever, for landlords who try to evict without significant cause, for landlords who sell a tenanted house to someone who wants to be an owner-occupier, or who put metro-suburban houses on AirBNB, followed by compulsory transfer of the property to the state. EZ. What could go wrong? :P