David Penington3d ago
Joshua Byrd
The reason that cutting the CGT discount will lead to a big increase in supply of homes for owner occupiers is not that it will make builders build faster, but because it will make hundreds of thousands of property speculators decide they don’t want to hang on to so many houses. https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/260312-australia-actually-has-more-than-enough-houses-theyre-just-owned-by-investors
Australia actually has more than enough houses, they’re just owned by investors

Over the past 10 years, the number of new homes has been growing faster than the population. Read that sentence again if you need to, but doing so won’t change the facts.

Mar 14 at 5:51amWeb
Show threadsortius 3d ago

@phocks the problem is, no one wants their home losing value, which is such a bullshit thing. Anyone buying a home while CGT discounts and negative gearing is king will always have bought at "the wrong time", purely because of how overheated our property market is.

I still remember the mantra as a kid "safe as bricks and mortar", and we need to maybe end this myth. It's a home, not an investment. If it goes down in value, who cares, so do cars, computers, and everything else in life

Show threadJoshua Byrd3d ago
@sortius exactly
Show threadMWT3d ago

@sortius @phocks If you're living in it and not planning to sell it, who cares what its market value is.

Anyway, I hope similar ideas come to New Zealand soon. Our housing market is similarly borked.

Show threadLea de Groot TZ+103d ago
@phocks there is rumour of curtailing the CGT discount in the upcoming budget, and i am on tenterhooks to see if they do!!! Best thing for Australia ever! (But will they go far enough?)
Show threadJoshua Byrd3d ago
@leadegroot 🤞
Show threadDavid Willanski3d ago
@phocks the argument against it seems to be those houses will then magically disappear and prices will go even higher
Show threadiainbertram3d ago

@phocks this argument is certainly correct but doesn’t quite get to the whole picture. I am pretty sure the occupancy per household has gone down over the last thirty years (smaller families and a lot of older couples). This means we need more smaller residences in the future to free up family homes as well.

Cutting discounts is damn good start though.